“Panic! Run for the hills! This is the end…”
Yeah, you’ve heard it before from me too, and now apparently, progressives and Democrats all over the country are panicking in reaction to the debt ceiling bill.
“Oh no! Obama caved again! He’s a secret conservative! What’ll we do?!”
WHOA! Hold on just a second Ma Barker—don’t run for the hills just yet. Let’s put this thing in perspective here.
First off, Obama is a conservative—Democrat. But wouldn't you rather have that than a gun-slinger who throws the ball all over the field, often into the hands of the opposition? Never mind, we'll get to that later.
Look, we may not agree with all of Obama's policies, but at least he’s a rational human being, which cannot be said of anyone on the other side. Also, the compromises that he’s signed didn’t come as a result of normal politics, where people with different positions sit down at a table together and figure out a compromise. He sat across the table from a spoiled brat and a bunch of terrorists.
And though the unbelievably irresponsible mainstream media failed to point out that it was Republicans, not Democrats, who were threatening the nation’s economy, the American people saw everything: they saw a rational man trying his best to go forward with reasonable ideas, like revoking tax breaks and subsidies for multi-billion dollar corporations, raising tax rates on those who measure their incomes in hundreds of thousands or millions, and making some tough choices about which government programs to scale back. On the other side, they saw a party holding a gun to the nations economy, cocking it when they didn't get their way.
Let’s get back to what makes Democrats and progressives different from the other side. Follow through—what are the consequences of the deal? Well, let’s point out right now, that with no deal, we’d currently be in default, which would have raised everyone’s interest rates, devalued the dollar, and tanked the economy.
However, the deal itself isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. Remember, the cuts don’t go into effect this year, but over a ten year period—they’re back loaded. So, in effect, if we elect a majority in both houses in 2012, they can just go back and change the deal.
Also, the trigger mechanism that was set up to cut 1.5 billion (half Medicare, half Defense) is genius, because there is no way the bi-partisan commission will be able to come up, honestly, with an alternative plan that does not increase revenue, in which case as we’ve seen, there is no chance of it ever passing the House since Republicans are dead set against any increases in revenue. And, if the commission somehow did come up with an alternative plan that didn’t include revenue, there is no way it would pass the Senate, which is held by Democrats.
What does this mean? It means that the trigger mechanism will almost certainly go into effect, and that is actually a very good thing. Medicare needs to be reformed in order to survive, and our defense budget is outlandish. And who gets to decide how those cuts take place? Obama does. Who has veto power? Obama does. And this time, there’s no gun to his head—it’s either automatic cuts that he controls, or a bill that he endorses.
Are we starting to understand? He pulled a fast one on the Republicans—we won, and in the process, a lot of Americans who don’t normally pay attention saw exactly how irrational the Republican party has become, including their corporate and Wall street donors.
Now look forward. Obama has a huge political warchest and is likely going to face a Republican candidate who has been forced to run so far right in order to win the primary that they’ll never be able to convince rational Republicans, moderates, and independents to vote for them. Sure, Obama hasn’t been able to enact what the economy needs—a massive stimulus package aimed primarily at education and infrastructure—but he hasn’t had the means either.
Here’s the football analogy. In the first two years, we scored on them, first with the stimulus package, and then with the health care bill. Dems 10 (I’ll give the stimulus an FG and the health care bill a TD), Reps 0. Then in 2010, the Republicans won office back—a natural kneejerk reaction for a country that found itself in a recession, when the opposition party was promising jobs (where are those jobs, by the way—they seem to be like Bush’s WMD’s—non-existent), not to mention the fact that our voters fumbled by not showing up to the polls. Dems 10, Reps 7.
Now, the Republicans scored a FG by getting Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts, but Obama scored a FG by getting them to extend unemployment benefits. Dems 13, Reps 10. During the first part of this year, the Republicans had the ball and were driving, but during the debt ceiling talks, Boehner threw a long bomb downfield and Eric Cantor and his Tea Party extremists pulled a T.O. and decided not to catch the ball, which we then intercepted (never good to have dissention on the bench).
Now, we may have had to punt the ball with this deal, but we’ve got them pinned down deep in their own territory. Democratic leaders have called for a renewed focus on jobs when Congress returns from its August recess. And the Republicans have been calling some horrible plays.
For example, before the recess, House Republicans were foolish enough to force a silly fight with the TSA because it allows unions, costing the government over a billion dollars in lost revenue and endangering lives. Rest assured, the mainstream media will pick up on this if they haven't already.
Additionally, they promised jobs in 2010, but they’ve done nothing to create them. In the states, where there are Republican governors and legislatures, they’re cutting teachers, firemen, police, and other public employees, all while putting the full court press on to deny women, especially vulnerable ones with children, health care services.
Finally, Republicans have now been put on record several times as holding a position that is deeply at odds with the American public, over 80% of whom believe we should raise taxes on the rich and close corporate loopholes and tax breaks. They can’t pass (legislation that is), and it’s pretty easy to stop the run when you know they’re going right every time.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to be able to score in the next year either because of staunch goal-line defense in the House, but we can drive the ball deep by putting forth legislation that would create jobs, and because President Obama, though stymied by a tough Republican defense, is a great quarterback. What we need to do at half time (2012) is to not lose faith, to put him back in under center, and get him more playmakers.
Let’s face it, we hoped we’d be winning 35-0 right now, and by all rights, we should be, but let’s remember, we’re playing on a neutral field, and the refs (supreme court) have made some extremely bad calls. Still, if we stick to our guns and support our guys, we’re going to win this game, and its possible we can blow them out in the second half.
It’s 13 to 10. We’re up 3 against our bitter rivals. Are we really going to give up because we’re not winning by enough?
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Default. Default? Default!
Well dear reader, I guess it looks like we’re going to default. I’d get out of the stock market now, and if you can, lock in your mortgage and credit card interest rates, or pay them off all together. Of course, most Americans can’t afford to do that, so the rosiest thing I can say is: this will be interesting.
Now, there are three ways the Ring (the debt ceiling, which the Cants are currently wielding like Sauron on a drunken power binge) can be destroyed here:
1) Obama can, citing Article 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, basically just say, “guys, the fuckwads in Congress can’t get it done—the Republican party has journeyed to the edge of the conservative abyss, and seeing nothing there, went insane. Like the Reevers in “Firefly,” they have become soulless, cannibalistic monsters who stink of scotch and prostitutes—dirty, dirty whores. So, I’m just going to raise the debt ceiling, because what they are currently doing, though their mangled minds can’t comprehend this, is unconstitutional. God bless you, and God bless America.”
2) The Federal Reserve could basically just start printing money, although, they wouldn’t actually print it—they’d just say it was a loan.
3) Congress could get its shit together and raise the debt limit. Harry Reid’s plan is incredibly smart, and fits the Republican’s originally stated criteria for raising the debt limit. If they reject this, Reid and Pelosi should basically just put forth a simple bill that says, “we’re going to raise the debt limit by 2 trillion.” Then force Republicans to vote against that and take responsibility for their almost unfathomable irresponsibility.
Hopefully, one of these things will happen, although, in my own mangled mind, there’s a small, evil voice shouting, “default, default! DEFAULT!” And instead of holding up a large “D” and a white picket fence, he’s burning a large fake dollar.
I know, it sounds awful, but he’s on our side, and here’s why a default could actually be good: the Republicans are going to take the responsibility for default like a rocket up the ass. Sure, the usual liars like Limbaugh, Fox, and the supposedly serious George Will, will try to find some way to blame it on Obama, but in the end, these are the facts, and they are undisputed:
A) Congress has raised the debt ceiling something like 70 or 80 times without default.
B) Republicans had no problem doing it during Bush’s presidency, in which the deficit exploded.
C) More than 50% of Americans already know that the Republican party is evil and hates the U.S.
D) The other 20-30% of people that don’t really pay attention will wake up pissed when they see the economy crash.
E) Corporate donors to the Republican Party, which are substantial, will back out and support Democrats in the next election.
So, if we default, you’re going to see the Republican Party and the spinsters try to pull off a little magic act, they’re gonna try a little misdirection. They’re going to astonish you with stories of spending and dazzle you with official sounding terms like “Financial Responsibility.” They might even cut into a few of their own for you. They’ll have no evidence, mind you, none. But it’s gonna be entertaining. And when we get to the end, all the magic in the world will not have been able to divert your attention from the fact that the U.S. economy is dead, and the Republican Party killed it. These are the facts of the case. And they are undisputed.
OK, I’m done plagiarizing captain Ross there, but I hope the Republican party gets it: lies only work for so long, and they don’t work at all when people are begging in the streets. Americans have had the privilege of being pretty whimsical of late, but people have a way of sobering up pretty fucking quick when you steal money from them, or when you endanger their family’s well-being. Sure, they’ll always have the 20% of morons on their side, because they’re about as intelligent and loyal as golden retrievers. But rest assured that most Americans, when they find their financial future under attack, will care enough to find out just what the fuck has been going on.
See, every time the Cants pull this bullshit parade—every time they force their conservative policies on our nation, which are terrible for the economy—they lose people. And there are a lot of Republican voters out there with mortgages and investments that are going to be furious if we default, and at the end of the day, most of them aren’t going to blame Obama or the Democrats, who’ve offered several incredibly good deals in order to raise the debt limit—to which the Republicans said, “no.”
So, look, I hope that like in Lord of the Rings, some force in government bites the Ring off of the Republican hand and falls into the fires of Mount Doom, but I also know that when evil rears its ugly head, dwarves, elves, and men make unlikely alliances. If we default, few will dispute what I’ve been saying all along: the Republican Party is evil. Purely, and wholly, evil.
Now, there are three ways the Ring (the debt ceiling, which the Cants are currently wielding like Sauron on a drunken power binge) can be destroyed here:
1) Obama can, citing Article 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, basically just say, “guys, the fuckwads in Congress can’t get it done—the Republican party has journeyed to the edge of the conservative abyss, and seeing nothing there, went insane. Like the Reevers in “Firefly,” they have become soulless, cannibalistic monsters who stink of scotch and prostitutes—dirty, dirty whores. So, I’m just going to raise the debt ceiling, because what they are currently doing, though their mangled minds can’t comprehend this, is unconstitutional. God bless you, and God bless America.”
2) The Federal Reserve could basically just start printing money, although, they wouldn’t actually print it—they’d just say it was a loan.
3) Congress could get its shit together and raise the debt limit. Harry Reid’s plan is incredibly smart, and fits the Republican’s originally stated criteria for raising the debt limit. If they reject this, Reid and Pelosi should basically just put forth a simple bill that says, “we’re going to raise the debt limit by 2 trillion.” Then force Republicans to vote against that and take responsibility for their almost unfathomable irresponsibility.
Hopefully, one of these things will happen, although, in my own mangled mind, there’s a small, evil voice shouting, “default, default! DEFAULT!” And instead of holding up a large “D” and a white picket fence, he’s burning a large fake dollar.
I know, it sounds awful, but he’s on our side, and here’s why a default could actually be good: the Republicans are going to take the responsibility for default like a rocket up the ass. Sure, the usual liars like Limbaugh, Fox, and the supposedly serious George Will, will try to find some way to blame it on Obama, but in the end, these are the facts, and they are undisputed:
A) Congress has raised the debt ceiling something like 70 or 80 times without default.
B) Republicans had no problem doing it during Bush’s presidency, in which the deficit exploded.
C) More than 50% of Americans already know that the Republican party is evil and hates the U.S.
D) The other 20-30% of people that don’t really pay attention will wake up pissed when they see the economy crash.
E) Corporate donors to the Republican Party, which are substantial, will back out and support Democrats in the next election.
So, if we default, you’re going to see the Republican Party and the spinsters try to pull off a little magic act, they’re gonna try a little misdirection. They’re going to astonish you with stories of spending and dazzle you with official sounding terms like “Financial Responsibility.” They might even cut into a few of their own for you. They’ll have no evidence, mind you, none. But it’s gonna be entertaining. And when we get to the end, all the magic in the world will not have been able to divert your attention from the fact that the U.S. economy is dead, and the Republican Party killed it. These are the facts of the case. And they are undisputed.
OK, I’m done plagiarizing captain Ross there, but I hope the Republican party gets it: lies only work for so long, and they don’t work at all when people are begging in the streets. Americans have had the privilege of being pretty whimsical of late, but people have a way of sobering up pretty fucking quick when you steal money from them, or when you endanger their family’s well-being. Sure, they’ll always have the 20% of morons on their side, because they’re about as intelligent and loyal as golden retrievers. But rest assured that most Americans, when they find their financial future under attack, will care enough to find out just what the fuck has been going on.
See, every time the Cants pull this bullshit parade—every time they force their conservative policies on our nation, which are terrible for the economy—they lose people. And there are a lot of Republican voters out there with mortgages and investments that are going to be furious if we default, and at the end of the day, most of them aren’t going to blame Obama or the Democrats, who’ve offered several incredibly good deals in order to raise the debt limit—to which the Republicans said, “no.”
So, look, I hope that like in Lord of the Rings, some force in government bites the Ring off of the Republican hand and falls into the fires of Mount Doom, but I also know that when evil rears its ugly head, dwarves, elves, and men make unlikely alliances. If we default, few will dispute what I’ve been saying all along: the Republican Party is evil. Purely, and wholly, evil.
Friday, July 22, 2011
A...sigh...Brilliant Maneuver
OK, so I don’t know if I’ll have time to make this super humorous, but I have a few thoughts on this “deal” that Obama is agreeing to with the Republicans. Supposedly, thought the deal has yet to be announced, it contains some pretty decent cuts in Social Security as well as Medicare.
1. If this in fact is true, Obama has completely betrayed his Democratic base. He betrayed us when he took the “public option” off the table for health care reform. He betrayed us when he refused to end the Bush tax cuts (which, by the way, would have gone a long way toward solving this deficit problem). He completely blew it when he allowed most of his stimulus package (which was too small in the first place) to come in the form of tax cuts. And finally, if he cuts the Social Security and Medicare benefits, he’s ignoring 80% of the American people, who don’t want any cuts in these programs.
2. It might also be one of the most brilliant political moves in recent history. Because where, progressives, are we going to go? The Republican party basically wants to bring about a society where there are too classes: slaves and masters. They are the manifestation of pure evil. They would sell their own daughters into prostitution if it meant they could gain power. Right now, deep in the bowels of Dick Cheney’s compound, they have necromancers working around pentagram shaped clocks to resurrect Dracula, Voldemort, Sauron, Emperor Palpatine, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. They think Dennis Miller is funny. So, if we’re choosing the lesser of two evils, Obama’s our guy.
Moreover, this political maneuver leaves Republicans no place to go in terms of message and platform. They can’t say we have a debt problem, because Obama will have dealt with it. They can’t say they want to reform Medicare and Social Security—it’ll already have been done. They can’t say Obama’s spending too much money right after a much publicized debt deal to cut our deficit by 4 trillion in the next 10 years. Where are they going to go? More tax cuts? That’s not going to fly. Abortion? That will lose them votes. The same with anti-gay messaging. Now jobs…
Well, they may crow about the state of the economy, but they don’t have any remedies for it. Tax cuts don’t work, and the public is starting to understand that. Cut regulations? No, that led to the Wall Street crisis. Get rid of Obama Care? That is also a losing proposition—most Americans want health care reform, especially as they see insurance companies continue to ratchet up their rates. See? If this deal gets done the Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on, and if they try to manufacture another crisis like this one, that’ll surely spell disaster for them in 2012—public opinion is already turning against them this time.
And that is why what Obama has done is so brilliant. Progressives have no choice but to vote for him, because they won’t vote for a Republican, and they know what happens if they stay home: 2010. On the other hand, the Republican base has no reason to be motivated at this point, debt crisis well in hand, and their evil candidates have nothing to run on that is going to motivate independents to vote for them.
3. This is still only brilliant for one person: Obama. It’s not good for the country, because on the whole, our domestic policies continue to move right, which is the wrong direction—the further we head down that road the worse our economy will be. So, here is what progressives need to do:
A) Unless some awesome progressive challenger comes forward, like Bernie Sanders, we have to re-elect Obama in 2012. He is way better than anyone on the Republican side (can you imagine what would happen to a liberal state like Oregon when Michelle Bachmann got one of her headaches as commander in chief?), and in the end, he’s proven that he’ll sign bills and do the business of the people, thus…
B) WE HAVE TO ELECT DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES IN BOTH HOUSES! If we can get good progressive politicians in office in 2012, we’ll be able to get legislation that might actually be able to address some of the huge issues we face as a nation, and my guess is, Obama will aid them and sign their bills.
C) We need to start looking for an ACTUAL progressive presidential candidate for 2016, one who will actually CHANGE the way D.C. works, instead of lying about it to win an election. I would even tend to say that it would be better if this person were an Independent, because that could deal a potential death blow to the Republican party, which, if you oppose evil you’ll agree, should be eradicated as soon as possible. This happens in America’s history every so often—one party become irrelevant, another party changes its position, and a new party springs into life. In this case, the Republican party may well become irrelevant, the Democrats will be the new conservatives (as they’re proving every damn day), and the Independent party, or some other party, will be the new liberals.
D) Don’t lose hope! We’re so much smarter than the cons, we have the truth on our side, and ingenious solutions to the problems we face as a nation. Keep working, keep electing progressives, stay active, and eventually, we’ll see the changes we need to make this nation great again. Keep the faith!
1. If this in fact is true, Obama has completely betrayed his Democratic base. He betrayed us when he took the “public option” off the table for health care reform. He betrayed us when he refused to end the Bush tax cuts (which, by the way, would have gone a long way toward solving this deficit problem). He completely blew it when he allowed most of his stimulus package (which was too small in the first place) to come in the form of tax cuts. And finally, if he cuts the Social Security and Medicare benefits, he’s ignoring 80% of the American people, who don’t want any cuts in these programs.
2. It might also be one of the most brilliant political moves in recent history. Because where, progressives, are we going to go? The Republican party basically wants to bring about a society where there are too classes: slaves and masters. They are the manifestation of pure evil. They would sell their own daughters into prostitution if it meant they could gain power. Right now, deep in the bowels of Dick Cheney’s compound, they have necromancers working around pentagram shaped clocks to resurrect Dracula, Voldemort, Sauron, Emperor Palpatine, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. They think Dennis Miller is funny. So, if we’re choosing the lesser of two evils, Obama’s our guy.
Moreover, this political maneuver leaves Republicans no place to go in terms of message and platform. They can’t say we have a debt problem, because Obama will have dealt with it. They can’t say they want to reform Medicare and Social Security—it’ll already have been done. They can’t say Obama’s spending too much money right after a much publicized debt deal to cut our deficit by 4 trillion in the next 10 years. Where are they going to go? More tax cuts? That’s not going to fly. Abortion? That will lose them votes. The same with anti-gay messaging. Now jobs…
Well, they may crow about the state of the economy, but they don’t have any remedies for it. Tax cuts don’t work, and the public is starting to understand that. Cut regulations? No, that led to the Wall Street crisis. Get rid of Obama Care? That is also a losing proposition—most Americans want health care reform, especially as they see insurance companies continue to ratchet up their rates. See? If this deal gets done the Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on, and if they try to manufacture another crisis like this one, that’ll surely spell disaster for them in 2012—public opinion is already turning against them this time.
And that is why what Obama has done is so brilliant. Progressives have no choice but to vote for him, because they won’t vote for a Republican, and they know what happens if they stay home: 2010. On the other hand, the Republican base has no reason to be motivated at this point, debt crisis well in hand, and their evil candidates have nothing to run on that is going to motivate independents to vote for them.
3. This is still only brilliant for one person: Obama. It’s not good for the country, because on the whole, our domestic policies continue to move right, which is the wrong direction—the further we head down that road the worse our economy will be. So, here is what progressives need to do:
A) Unless some awesome progressive challenger comes forward, like Bernie Sanders, we have to re-elect Obama in 2012. He is way better than anyone on the Republican side (can you imagine what would happen to a liberal state like Oregon when Michelle Bachmann got one of her headaches as commander in chief?), and in the end, he’s proven that he’ll sign bills and do the business of the people, thus…
B) WE HAVE TO ELECT DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES IN BOTH HOUSES! If we can get good progressive politicians in office in 2012, we’ll be able to get legislation that might actually be able to address some of the huge issues we face as a nation, and my guess is, Obama will aid them and sign their bills.
C) We need to start looking for an ACTUAL progressive presidential candidate for 2016, one who will actually CHANGE the way D.C. works, instead of lying about it to win an election. I would even tend to say that it would be better if this person were an Independent, because that could deal a potential death blow to the Republican party, which, if you oppose evil you’ll agree, should be eradicated as soon as possible. This happens in America’s history every so often—one party become irrelevant, another party changes its position, and a new party springs into life. In this case, the Republican party may well become irrelevant, the Democrats will be the new conservatives (as they’re proving every damn day), and the Independent party, or some other party, will be the new liberals.
D) Don’t lose hope! We’re so much smarter than the cons, we have the truth on our side, and ingenious solutions to the problems we face as a nation. Keep working, keep electing progressives, stay active, and eventually, we’ll see the changes we need to make this nation great again. Keep the faith!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Too Greedily...Too Deep...Brooks' and U.S. Women Epic Fails
Alice: “Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
The Mad Hatter: “That is an excellent practice.”
Rush Limbaugh: “Hoorh, humph, hoo, rawh, gobbledegook.”
David Brooks: “Dumb, da-da-da dumb dumb dumb, dumb da-da-da, dumb dumb....smart.”
Not sure how many of you read David Brooks’ latest column in the New York Times—I’ll attach the URL at the bottom—but even as he is hailed the last supposedly serious, reasonable conservative by the main stream media, I’d like to point out that the very concept of a “serious, reasonable conservative” is itself, an oxymoron…emphasis on moron.
See, what has become clear through the budget debate is that there are two types of Republicans: 1) Brooks’ ilk, who seem to believe that conservatism has rational and laudible goals, and 2) bat shit crazy fuckwads that end up voting or working for the elephants because they have a religious-like belief (often combined with their actual religion, Christinsanity—or as I like to call it, creepyism) in some sort of basic conservative principal, like racism, or hypocrisy. And while I much prefer Brooks to Bachmann, the fact remains that they are both wrong, and continue to be wrong about so many things that if they were enrolled in school they’d be riding the short bus and failing classes.
If you read Brooks’ column, you’ll notice that he breaks down group 2 (although, I believe far less eloquently than I’ve done here) and castigates them as the reason for the recent Republicant failure on debt ceiling and budget talks. That’s why he get’s one smart above.
But the rest of what he said is deeply dumb. You see, conservatives, like the dwarves in Moria, delved too greedily, and too deep. They were both in search of riches (for Cons, in the form of loopholes and tax cuts), and unfortunately their lecherous and unbridled greed led them to a very dark and awful place. And neither the dwarves, nor the cants, did what every thinking and rational person must do before they undertake an endeavor: what are the consequences if I succeed?
For instance, Brooks talks in his article giddily about the prospects of a Republicant sweep of the 2012 election, suggesting that then, “controlling the White House and Congress, perhaps they will have the guts to cut Medicare unilaterally, reform the welfare state and herald in an era of Conservative greatness.” I’m actually a little embarrassed for him after writing that quote down, I mean, “the era of Conservative greatness?” What the hell does that even mean? I thought this guy was a “serious, rational, respectable person,” not some child hoping desperately that Santa brings him a pretty new pony and special new dresses for his doll collection.
Well, let’s go with what he says. For one, we know that this “era” includes cutting Medicare “unilaterally.” What fucking insurance do you suppose you’re going to have Brooks? Face it, you’re old, and you can’t keep writing nonsense forever and expecting that its going to continue to get published. What happens when you retire, you ass clown?
See, this is what the Republicants don’t ever seem to do—follow through with what would happen were they to accomplish their goals. They talk about axing Medicare, cutting Social Security, and repealing Obama care (they actually read this as “Evil Care.” For the record, I’m against Evil Care as well, but since Congress never passed a bill called Obamacare, or Evil Care, but instead passed the Affordable Care Act, it remains a moot point), but then they fail to say what they would do to replace these programs. They seem to forget, conveniently, that the health insurance industry, which is NOT a free market (the industry as a whole has anti-trust exemption, along with other special prizes), was and is continuing to rape our economy with all the subtlety of Silverback gorilla in heat.
Remember, when the CBO analyzed the effect the Affordable Care Act would have on the economy, they said that it would actually save the federal government around $128 billion by 2019 (conservative reader, I just read the CBO budget, so don’t try to lie to me like you always do and tell me I’m wrong. Go back to playing with your train set…) Granted, that isn’t a ton of savings, but it isn’t going to cost us more either. And nearly all Americans will have health insurance.
By the way, Evil Care, aka the Bush Tax Cuts, costs us $700 billion in revenue every two years—most of which goes to pay the salaries of Satan’s first captain, Grover Norquist, and his children, D.C. corporate lobbyists.
The other thing is that it seems Republicants believe that somehow if we balance the budget, the skies are going to open up and gold is going to come raining down out of the heavens. They don’t know why they believe it—they just do, with all the zeal of a drunken Scotsman in field of helpless sheep. The reality of balancing the budget during a recession and this supposed “era of Conservative greatness” to follow is that for most Americans, it means eating tuna fish sandwiches three times a day and living in your parent’s basement, because Grandma got the guest room.
The even stranger irony is that even while Brooks is pining for this “era of Conservative greatness,” along with the Republicant victories in the next election, he is excoriating the people in control of the party as foolish, self-serving, and incapable of governance. In short, he basically says that when it comes to this debt ceiling debacle, they fucked up monumentally. In a previous column, he basically labels the entire party’s leadership as irrational. Why then, would he want them in control of the government?!
Well, he may, but my guess is, most American’s by now don’t. The simple fact about the Republicant party is this: they can’t govern the country. They don’t confirm judges. They filibuster legislation Americans broadly support. They vote for legislation that Americans don’t support. They’re willing to put the country at risk of international and financial crises in order to protect tax cuts for the very rich. And, as even the delusional Brooks’ points out, they won’t even compromise on a budget deal in which they’re getting 90% of what they want. They’re so dysfunctional at this point that they simply can’t govern the country, and as much as I get frustrated with Obama and the Democrats on certain issues, they’ve made at least one thing clear to the American people: they’ll make sure the country continues to function. They’ll do the people’s business and administer government.
Oh, on a side note, I just want to congratulate the U.S. women’s soccer team on one of the biggest choke-jobs I’ve ever seen in my life. Allowing Japan to come back and score goals twice when all you had to do was keep the ball away from them for 10 minutes and then missing your first three PK’s is just terrible. And I for one, am not going to sit back like the lazy media and congratulate Japan for hanging in there, or excuse our girls for the huge egg they laid just because they’re female. For the U.S. team: that was an epic fucking fail—you lost to a team of boy-midgets with troll hair (like the dolls). They may indeed have been Japanese women, but it sure didn’t look like it to me.
For the Japanese: you won the lottery—congratulations—but I wouldn’t trade places with you. I’m sorry for the tragedy that befell you this spring, but you live on a small island with about a hundred nuclear plants in an area of the world that is prone to earthquakes. That’s the truth, and winning a women’s soccer game isn’t going to change it.
Here’s the link to Brooks’ column:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB)
The Mad Hatter: “That is an excellent practice.”
Rush Limbaugh: “Hoorh, humph, hoo, rawh, gobbledegook.”
David Brooks: “Dumb, da-da-da dumb dumb dumb, dumb da-da-da, dumb dumb....smart.”
Not sure how many of you read David Brooks’ latest column in the New York Times—I’ll attach the URL at the bottom—but even as he is hailed the last supposedly serious, reasonable conservative by the main stream media, I’d like to point out that the very concept of a “serious, reasonable conservative” is itself, an oxymoron…emphasis on moron.
See, what has become clear through the budget debate is that there are two types of Republicans: 1) Brooks’ ilk, who seem to believe that conservatism has rational and laudible goals, and 2) bat shit crazy fuckwads that end up voting or working for the elephants because they have a religious-like belief (often combined with their actual religion, Christinsanity—or as I like to call it, creepyism) in some sort of basic conservative principal, like racism, or hypocrisy. And while I much prefer Brooks to Bachmann, the fact remains that they are both wrong, and continue to be wrong about so many things that if they were enrolled in school they’d be riding the short bus and failing classes.
If you read Brooks’ column, you’ll notice that he breaks down group 2 (although, I believe far less eloquently than I’ve done here) and castigates them as the reason for the recent Republicant failure on debt ceiling and budget talks. That’s why he get’s one smart above.
But the rest of what he said is deeply dumb. You see, conservatives, like the dwarves in Moria, delved too greedily, and too deep. They were both in search of riches (for Cons, in the form of loopholes and tax cuts), and unfortunately their lecherous and unbridled greed led them to a very dark and awful place. And neither the dwarves, nor the cants, did what every thinking and rational person must do before they undertake an endeavor: what are the consequences if I succeed?
For instance, Brooks talks in his article giddily about the prospects of a Republicant sweep of the 2012 election, suggesting that then, “controlling the White House and Congress, perhaps they will have the guts to cut Medicare unilaterally, reform the welfare state and herald in an era of Conservative greatness.” I’m actually a little embarrassed for him after writing that quote down, I mean, “the era of Conservative greatness?” What the hell does that even mean? I thought this guy was a “serious, rational, respectable person,” not some child hoping desperately that Santa brings him a pretty new pony and special new dresses for his doll collection.
Well, let’s go with what he says. For one, we know that this “era” includes cutting Medicare “unilaterally.” What fucking insurance do you suppose you’re going to have Brooks? Face it, you’re old, and you can’t keep writing nonsense forever and expecting that its going to continue to get published. What happens when you retire, you ass clown?
See, this is what the Republicants don’t ever seem to do—follow through with what would happen were they to accomplish their goals. They talk about axing Medicare, cutting Social Security, and repealing Obama care (they actually read this as “Evil Care.” For the record, I’m against Evil Care as well, but since Congress never passed a bill called Obamacare, or Evil Care, but instead passed the Affordable Care Act, it remains a moot point), but then they fail to say what they would do to replace these programs. They seem to forget, conveniently, that the health insurance industry, which is NOT a free market (the industry as a whole has anti-trust exemption, along with other special prizes), was and is continuing to rape our economy with all the subtlety of Silverback gorilla in heat.
Remember, when the CBO analyzed the effect the Affordable Care Act would have on the economy, they said that it would actually save the federal government around $128 billion by 2019 (conservative reader, I just read the CBO budget, so don’t try to lie to me like you always do and tell me I’m wrong. Go back to playing with your train set…) Granted, that isn’t a ton of savings, but it isn’t going to cost us more either. And nearly all Americans will have health insurance.
By the way, Evil Care, aka the Bush Tax Cuts, costs us $700 billion in revenue every two years—most of which goes to pay the salaries of Satan’s first captain, Grover Norquist, and his children, D.C. corporate lobbyists.
The other thing is that it seems Republicants believe that somehow if we balance the budget, the skies are going to open up and gold is going to come raining down out of the heavens. They don’t know why they believe it—they just do, with all the zeal of a drunken Scotsman in field of helpless sheep. The reality of balancing the budget during a recession and this supposed “era of Conservative greatness” to follow is that for most Americans, it means eating tuna fish sandwiches three times a day and living in your parent’s basement, because Grandma got the guest room.
The even stranger irony is that even while Brooks is pining for this “era of Conservative greatness,” along with the Republicant victories in the next election, he is excoriating the people in control of the party as foolish, self-serving, and incapable of governance. In short, he basically says that when it comes to this debt ceiling debacle, they fucked up monumentally. In a previous column, he basically labels the entire party’s leadership as irrational. Why then, would he want them in control of the government?!
Well, he may, but my guess is, most American’s by now don’t. The simple fact about the Republicant party is this: they can’t govern the country. They don’t confirm judges. They filibuster legislation Americans broadly support. They vote for legislation that Americans don’t support. They’re willing to put the country at risk of international and financial crises in order to protect tax cuts for the very rich. And, as even the delusional Brooks’ points out, they won’t even compromise on a budget deal in which they’re getting 90% of what they want. They’re so dysfunctional at this point that they simply can’t govern the country, and as much as I get frustrated with Obama and the Democrats on certain issues, they’ve made at least one thing clear to the American people: they’ll make sure the country continues to function. They’ll do the people’s business and administer government.
Oh, on a side note, I just want to congratulate the U.S. women’s soccer team on one of the biggest choke-jobs I’ve ever seen in my life. Allowing Japan to come back and score goals twice when all you had to do was keep the ball away from them for 10 minutes and then missing your first three PK’s is just terrible. And I for one, am not going to sit back like the lazy media and congratulate Japan for hanging in there, or excuse our girls for the huge egg they laid just because they’re female. For the U.S. team: that was an epic fucking fail—you lost to a team of boy-midgets with troll hair (like the dolls). They may indeed have been Japanese women, but it sure didn’t look like it to me.
For the Japanese: you won the lottery—congratulations—but I wouldn’t trade places with you. I’m sorry for the tragedy that befell you this spring, but you live on a small island with about a hundred nuclear plants in an area of the world that is prone to earthquakes. That’s the truth, and winning a women’s soccer game isn’t going to change it.
Here’s the link to Brooks’ column:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB)
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sith Absolutes and Random Thoughts on why Katy Perry is a Whore
Only the Sith deal in absolutes. And apparently, Republicans. That’s what it has basically come down to. No tax raises, even if they’re only applied on dollar 1,000,001 and above. No closing tax loopholes, even on corporations whose profits number in billions. No cuts in subsidies for oil companies, corporate jet owners, or industries that have moved their jobs to China. No raise in the estate tax, even on the estates of billionaires. No shared sacrifice. No revenue. No God.
In other words, when it comes to the deficit, which is just of the UTMOST FUCKING IMPORTANCE now that there’s a Democrat in the oval office, they are unwilling to do anything to help fill the coffers of the U.S. treasury, which they purposefully bankrupted during the Bush administration. In fact, on top of being willing to do absolutely nothing in the arena of raising revenue, they are also loath to cede any cuts in the military—by far the largest portion of government spending. Rationality equivalent: a serial rapist in a communal sorority shower.
It’s day two here in Mac, and I’ve seen some things. A shirtless fat man in jean shorts arguing with an obese woman wearing a sweatshirt. They were both smoking, and though I don’t read lips, their English looked underdeveloped. Also smoking was a woman riding a bicycle, dressed as if she was really out for a good ride…except that she was smoking. Of course, then she got pulled over by the local police. I don’t know why this matters, but there are a lot of very fat people out there, and that scares me. Mind you, I’m a tad overweight myself.
Seriously though, if we default on our debt, things are going to get real bad, real fast—you’d think the corporate masters would call in the Republicans and tell them to make a fucking deal, but it’s possible they’re so blind to the consequences they just don’t care.
But that leads me to my next realization: it doesn’t seem that our leaders, in general, are very smart or good. I talk to friends, co-workers, family, and it seems that everyone is living a real life version of “Horrible Bosses.” We don’t have an Albus Dumbledore, or a Good King Richard to come save the day. No FDR or Abe Lincoln. Instead it seems we’ve got a bunch of very effective people who are either evil (assuming they’re smart enough to know what they’re doing) or as stupid as their faces would lead you to believe. Have you seen Mitch McConnell? John Boehner? I hate their stupid fucking faces. And on the other side of the aisle, we’ve got a bunch of very ineffective people who generally want to do good, but are unable to do so, because as Norman Goldman says, “they don’t have the spine to tell their brain or their heart what to do.”
We’re stuck with a party who has two bad ideas—tax cuts and NO—and a party with all kinds of good ideas, but appears to the public as a pimply faced geek whose voice cracks every time he gets nervous. On top of that, we’ve got judges, leaders, CEOs, principals, mayors, and governors, that are basically idiots who’ve somehow managed to know someone rich in their life and got lucky enough to glad hand their way to power. We live in a society today that tells us it is more important to be loyal to your fuck-up brother than to choose the right human for the job.
OK, admittedly that was pretty random. Here are some other random thoughts and then I’ll be done:
1. Why do really fat people always smoke too? And then I wonder, do they also have small bowl shaped aquariums by their couches with frogs in them for snacks like Jabba the Hut? Or just hot wings and blue cheese? Tommy want wingy!
2. Why hasn’t someone killed Rush Limbaugh by now? God, this is one of the greatest mysteries of life: I get why bad things happen to good people (variety is the spice of life, after all), but why don’t bad things happen to bad people too? Why does it seem that every time I meet someone and the “Evil” meter goes off, they’re incredibly rich, having sex with someone pretty, and know a doctor who will prescribe them pain meds without question?
3. Who goes to those Kevin James movies, like “Mall Cop” and “Zookeeper?” And who goes to see the Chihuahua movies with talking dogs? And “Yogi Bear?” Can’t we use that as a litmus test to prevent those people from breeding anymore? I propose that every time a truly bad movie premiers, we get every vasectomy surgeon and OB Gyn doc in the country to round up their scissors and IUD’s, go to the nearest theatre, gas it, and then operate on every human over 12. We’ll call it, Unplanned Parenthood—since you’re still a child, you don’t get to have them.
4. I think we should call Katy Perry what she really is—she isn’t a singer—she’s a teacher. Her courses: How to be a Huge Slut 101, Sluttery 410, How to be Pretty and a Whore GR602, and Using Your Vagina to Get Ahead DR703. She’s now officially taking applications from your daughter between the ages of 8 and 18.
5. After this, am I going to be considered a bad enough person to be immune from bad things happening to me?
In other words, when it comes to the deficit, which is just of the UTMOST FUCKING IMPORTANCE now that there’s a Democrat in the oval office, they are unwilling to do anything to help fill the coffers of the U.S. treasury, which they purposefully bankrupted during the Bush administration. In fact, on top of being willing to do absolutely nothing in the arena of raising revenue, they are also loath to cede any cuts in the military—by far the largest portion of government spending. Rationality equivalent: a serial rapist in a communal sorority shower.
It’s day two here in Mac, and I’ve seen some things. A shirtless fat man in jean shorts arguing with an obese woman wearing a sweatshirt. They were both smoking, and though I don’t read lips, their English looked underdeveloped. Also smoking was a woman riding a bicycle, dressed as if she was really out for a good ride…except that she was smoking. Of course, then she got pulled over by the local police. I don’t know why this matters, but there are a lot of very fat people out there, and that scares me. Mind you, I’m a tad overweight myself.
Seriously though, if we default on our debt, things are going to get real bad, real fast—you’d think the corporate masters would call in the Republicans and tell them to make a fucking deal, but it’s possible they’re so blind to the consequences they just don’t care.
But that leads me to my next realization: it doesn’t seem that our leaders, in general, are very smart or good. I talk to friends, co-workers, family, and it seems that everyone is living a real life version of “Horrible Bosses.” We don’t have an Albus Dumbledore, or a Good King Richard to come save the day. No FDR or Abe Lincoln. Instead it seems we’ve got a bunch of very effective people who are either evil (assuming they’re smart enough to know what they’re doing) or as stupid as their faces would lead you to believe. Have you seen Mitch McConnell? John Boehner? I hate their stupid fucking faces. And on the other side of the aisle, we’ve got a bunch of very ineffective people who generally want to do good, but are unable to do so, because as Norman Goldman says, “they don’t have the spine to tell their brain or their heart what to do.”
We’re stuck with a party who has two bad ideas—tax cuts and NO—and a party with all kinds of good ideas, but appears to the public as a pimply faced geek whose voice cracks every time he gets nervous. On top of that, we’ve got judges, leaders, CEOs, principals, mayors, and governors, that are basically idiots who’ve somehow managed to know someone rich in their life and got lucky enough to glad hand their way to power. We live in a society today that tells us it is more important to be loyal to your fuck-up brother than to choose the right human for the job.
OK, admittedly that was pretty random. Here are some other random thoughts and then I’ll be done:
1. Why do really fat people always smoke too? And then I wonder, do they also have small bowl shaped aquariums by their couches with frogs in them for snacks like Jabba the Hut? Or just hot wings and blue cheese? Tommy want wingy!
2. Why hasn’t someone killed Rush Limbaugh by now? God, this is one of the greatest mysteries of life: I get why bad things happen to good people (variety is the spice of life, after all), but why don’t bad things happen to bad people too? Why does it seem that every time I meet someone and the “Evil” meter goes off, they’re incredibly rich, having sex with someone pretty, and know a doctor who will prescribe them pain meds without question?
3. Who goes to those Kevin James movies, like “Mall Cop” and “Zookeeper?” And who goes to see the Chihuahua movies with talking dogs? And “Yogi Bear?” Can’t we use that as a litmus test to prevent those people from breeding anymore? I propose that every time a truly bad movie premiers, we get every vasectomy surgeon and OB Gyn doc in the country to round up their scissors and IUD’s, go to the nearest theatre, gas it, and then operate on every human over 12. We’ll call it, Unplanned Parenthood—since you’re still a child, you don’t get to have them.
4. I think we should call Katy Perry what she really is—she isn’t a singer—she’s a teacher. Her courses: How to be a Huge Slut 101, Sluttery 410, How to be Pretty and a Whore GR602, and Using Your Vagina to Get Ahead DR703. She’s now officially taking applications from your daughter between the ages of 8 and 18.
5. After this, am I going to be considered a bad enough person to be immune from bad things happening to me?
Friday, July 8, 2011
Slippery Slopes and Rationality
So a little review here of the political happenings of the two major parties. Currently, there are three huge problems that we as a country are facing: 1) high unemployment/a slow economy, 2) the deficit, and 3) health care.
The Republicant strategy to address problem 1 is…well, it doesn’t really exist. What most Republicants would tell you is that they would cut taxes and regulations to allow private businesses to hire more people. Unfortunately there are some glaring gaps in this strategy: A) cutting taxes leads to problem 2, which everyone on the right wants to yell and scream about, B) taxes are the lowest they’ve been since 1950 (as a percentage of the GDP, we pay only 14% in taxes—that is a phenomenally low rate), and so far whatever factor they play in job growth is being dwarfed by other economic conditions, for example: C) the horrifying housing bubble propagated by Wall Street, mortgage lenders, and dumb fucking idiots who thought they could buy a $300,000 house on a $50,000 salary—none of which could have happened had there been government REGULATIONS to prevent such foolish financial speculation. So while cutting taxes and regulations sounds like a really good idea, it is actually very, very dumb. Not only that, it is proven not to work.
HOLD ON A SECOND SLIPPERY SLOPE STEVE—no one is saying that we should tax businesses more, or that we can tax our way out of this recession…the point is that cutting taxes more at this point would simply exacerbate our current problems. The whole slippery slope argument, by the way, is only used by people that don’t have a firm grasp on logic or reality. If they did, they wouldn’t find themselves on slope quite so fucking slick.
On the other hand, Democrats have proposed economic stimulus packages that would pay for people to build and repair things like road, railroads, bridges, dams, the electrical grid, etc. While this would cost some money, it is actually proven to work. It worked recently when Obama was first re-elected (notice that the states are just now running out of money—that’s cause they had stimulus money, which meant they could pay teachers, fire fighters, and other state employees to continue their fine work), and it also worked when FDR got us out of the Great Depression. And even if, batshit crazy conservative, you want to argue that WWII got us out of the Depression, guess who paid for all of those bombs, tanks, guns, etc? That’s right! The government, you stupid fuckwad. So either way, the government spending money during a recession is exactly the right thing to do, especially if it is invested in infrastructure (after all, we all need roads—in fact, if there are roads, you don’t have to walk on a slippery slope, right?).
This brings us to topic #2: the deficit. Republicans are just howling about the deficit, how it is so awful, and why it needs to be fixed immediately, or they won’t extend the debt limit. Their plan? Cut the government. Cut Medicare, Social Security, student loans, the national weather service, planned parenthood, public broadcasting, heating oil assistance to the poor, education—notice a trend here? The happen to be all of the programs the Republicants don’t like. Want to know how much those programs have grown in the past 10 years as a factor of our GDP? Zero percent. Want to know why we have a deficit? Afghanistan, Iraq, Medicare plus, tax cuts for the rich, tax loopholes for oil companies, I can go on, but I think you get the point. We have a deficit primarily because of Republican policies put in place during the W. Bush administration, during which, not one Republican ever said anything about the debt, and the debt limit was extended every time it was necessary.
Still, Democrats are willing to put the past behind them; they simply ask that along with cuts to certain programs, revenue is raised by ending unnecessary tax cuts, subsidies, and write offs for extremely successful industries (read: oil) and extremely successful individuals. Seems pretty fair and reasonable. Unless you want the economy to fail, in which case you go hell bent for everything you want to get out of the Democrats and if you don’t get it, you force the U.S. to default on its debt for the first time in history.
As for problem number 3, it is very simple. The Democrats recognized that something needed to be done about health care, and they did something. Meanwhile, the idiots, oops, I mean Republicants, bitched constantly, loudly, and vehemently about continuing to have the same lousy fucking system that has led U.S. health care to consume around 18% of our GDP (that’s really bad—Canada’s system is around 10%).
So, if you are an irrational person who dislike facts, wants to make things worse for the county, and is comfortable voting for a bunch of liars who might well tank our economy on purpose, vote Republican.
If you’re a rational person who wants to vote for people that are reasonable, and that have good ideas that are proven to work to solve our problems, vote Democrat.
Nothing that I've said here is untrue...if you think the Republicans are right--you're wrong. And dumb.
The Republicant strategy to address problem 1 is…well, it doesn’t really exist. What most Republicants would tell you is that they would cut taxes and regulations to allow private businesses to hire more people. Unfortunately there are some glaring gaps in this strategy: A) cutting taxes leads to problem 2, which everyone on the right wants to yell and scream about, B) taxes are the lowest they’ve been since 1950 (as a percentage of the GDP, we pay only 14% in taxes—that is a phenomenally low rate), and so far whatever factor they play in job growth is being dwarfed by other economic conditions, for example: C) the horrifying housing bubble propagated by Wall Street, mortgage lenders, and dumb fucking idiots who thought they could buy a $300,000 house on a $50,000 salary—none of which could have happened had there been government REGULATIONS to prevent such foolish financial speculation. So while cutting taxes and regulations sounds like a really good idea, it is actually very, very dumb. Not only that, it is proven not to work.
HOLD ON A SECOND SLIPPERY SLOPE STEVE—no one is saying that we should tax businesses more, or that we can tax our way out of this recession…the point is that cutting taxes more at this point would simply exacerbate our current problems. The whole slippery slope argument, by the way, is only used by people that don’t have a firm grasp on logic or reality. If they did, they wouldn’t find themselves on slope quite so fucking slick.
On the other hand, Democrats have proposed economic stimulus packages that would pay for people to build and repair things like road, railroads, bridges, dams, the electrical grid, etc. While this would cost some money, it is actually proven to work. It worked recently when Obama was first re-elected (notice that the states are just now running out of money—that’s cause they had stimulus money, which meant they could pay teachers, fire fighters, and other state employees to continue their fine work), and it also worked when FDR got us out of the Great Depression. And even if, batshit crazy conservative, you want to argue that WWII got us out of the Depression, guess who paid for all of those bombs, tanks, guns, etc? That’s right! The government, you stupid fuckwad. So either way, the government spending money during a recession is exactly the right thing to do, especially if it is invested in infrastructure (after all, we all need roads—in fact, if there are roads, you don’t have to walk on a slippery slope, right?).
This brings us to topic #2: the deficit. Republicans are just howling about the deficit, how it is so awful, and why it needs to be fixed immediately, or they won’t extend the debt limit. Their plan? Cut the government. Cut Medicare, Social Security, student loans, the national weather service, planned parenthood, public broadcasting, heating oil assistance to the poor, education—notice a trend here? The happen to be all of the programs the Republicants don’t like. Want to know how much those programs have grown in the past 10 years as a factor of our GDP? Zero percent. Want to know why we have a deficit? Afghanistan, Iraq, Medicare plus, tax cuts for the rich, tax loopholes for oil companies, I can go on, but I think you get the point. We have a deficit primarily because of Republican policies put in place during the W. Bush administration, during which, not one Republican ever said anything about the debt, and the debt limit was extended every time it was necessary.
Still, Democrats are willing to put the past behind them; they simply ask that along with cuts to certain programs, revenue is raised by ending unnecessary tax cuts, subsidies, and write offs for extremely successful industries (read: oil) and extremely successful individuals. Seems pretty fair and reasonable. Unless you want the economy to fail, in which case you go hell bent for everything you want to get out of the Democrats and if you don’t get it, you force the U.S. to default on its debt for the first time in history.
As for problem number 3, it is very simple. The Democrats recognized that something needed to be done about health care, and they did something. Meanwhile, the idiots, oops, I mean Republicants, bitched constantly, loudly, and vehemently about continuing to have the same lousy fucking system that has led U.S. health care to consume around 18% of our GDP (that’s really bad—Canada’s system is around 10%).
So, if you are an irrational person who dislike facts, wants to make things worse for the county, and is comfortable voting for a bunch of liars who might well tank our economy on purpose, vote Republican.
If you’re a rational person who wants to vote for people that are reasonable, and that have good ideas that are proven to work to solve our problems, vote Democrat.
Nothing that I've said here is untrue...if you think the Republicans are right--you're wrong. And dumb.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Politics Without Principle
In our political debate, we like to use terms like “liberal” and “conservative” to describe the views of individuals, groups, legislation, judicial decisions, etc. Our two parties, Democratic and Republican, are thought to stand for certain ideas, values, and beliefs, rooted in some kind of principle—a foundational philosophy that serves as the wellspring for all other ideas.
For example, people would probably say that this blog is liberal. The writer is a Democrat. Rachel Maddow is liberal. She is a Democrat. Rush Limbaugh is conservative. He is a Republican. For most of America, this labeling makes sense, and in our country, there has always been a place for both conservatives and liberals, for Republicans and Democrats…and their principles.
As a person who follows politics fairly closely, I’ve noticed something recently—especially given my zeal in eviscerating Republican talking points. First, consider these recent Republican positions on specific issues: adamant that the federal debt needs to be dramatically reduced, voted for privatizing Medicare into a voucher system, voted for the Paul Ryan budget that contained massive tax cuts, refused to approve a nuclear treaty or extend unemployment until Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, refused to allow a tax increase on millionaires, refused to end billions in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, virulently opposed to the Affordable Care Act which is projected to reduce the federal deficit, opposed to the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, refused to approve a war powers resolution to allow action against Libya to go forward.
What is so strange about this list? Well, for one thing, just about every position is 180 degrees from that of President Obama. But it is only context that tells us that. However, if an alien were to read this list of Republican positions 3,000 years from now, the very simple truth they would conclude is that there is almost nothing tying these positions together—there is no simple, underlying philosophy that can explain these positions.
In this sense, the modern Republican Party has committed one of the great human sins: politics without principle. Conservatives simply do not adhere to any real set of political values anymore; instead, they choose the route that is most politically expedient, and run with it.
Even consider their most championed cause: tax cuts. What is their position, as we all know? Cut taxes no matter what. But wait, what about the deficit? That issue has been foisted upon us with about as much grace as a 16 year old boy begging his girlfriend for sex. The deficit is an urgent, terrifying problem, we’re told. If we don’t fix it, we’ll become Greece, we’ll become Spain, we’ll become Japan! And because the deficit is such an awful problem, we should…cut taxes?
Surprisingly, that is exactly their answer. Paul Ryan’s budget, voted for by every Republican in the House, contained huge tax cuts. And look at every presidential candidate—they all want to cut taxes! So on the one hand, we are told that we have a very serious deficit problem, and on the other, we are told that the answer is to cut the primary source of revenue, or credit, for the government.
Now, some of you might be saying, “well, they always do believe in cutting taxes—they do that no matter what. Isn’t that principled?” No, it is not principled. A principle is a belief in a higher purpose, a balanced position based on reason and logic. The dictionary defines a principle as: “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”
In this sense, a principle involves more than just a directional policy, such as cutting taxes. A person could say they believe in very low taxes, but if we are to take the Republicans seriously, they seem to believe in having no taxes, which amounts to believing in anarchy, since any government must have some source of revenue to operate. Moreover, it is absurd to argue for both cutting the deficit and taxes—these are mutually exclusive ideas. A principled position would either say that it is more important to cut taxes, or that it is more important to pay down the deficit, depending on that person’s beliefs about the role of government. Thus, the Republican position of believing in tax cuts in perpetuity is absent of principle. Instead, it is something they put out as a major plank in their platform because tax cuts are popular.
Worse is their most hallowed position: opposition to abortion, or pro life. We are told, by Republicans, that abortion is murder, that the fetus is a human being and has the right to live, regardless of the mother’s, or family’s wishes. One would assume then, that Republicans care deeply about human beings, that they would be stalwart supporters of schools, health care, and programs like WIC, that provide support for women and their children. But this is not the case. Republicans recently have fought to make huge cuts to schools, have aggressively opposed health care reform, have made deals and are currently attempting to make more that would cut funding for WIC and other programs. At every turn, Republicans oppose having a social safety net that helps people survive, whether it is unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, etc. So while they want the government to be involved in deciding whether or not abortions can take place, they don’t want the government to be involved in helping at-risk people survive—a clear lack of principle.
It is precisely this lack of principle that is going to kill them in the 2012 election. How is Romney going to attack Obama for his health care plan when he passed its predecessor while he was governor in Massachusetts? How are Republicans going to argue for more tax cuts when they’ve spent every second between 2010 and 2012 howling about the deficit? How are they going to argue they value education when Republican governors everywhere have been busting unions and forcing massive cuts to teacher salaries and education budgets? How are they going to say on the one hand that they are opposed to ousting Gaddafi, and on the other, argue that it is important to keep troops in Afghanistan?
The only way they get away from these issues is if this concept is absent from the debate. From now on the Democrats need only one message: Republicans are a party without principle. As such, they are unfit to govern a country built on one: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
For example, people would probably say that this blog is liberal. The writer is a Democrat. Rachel Maddow is liberal. She is a Democrat. Rush Limbaugh is conservative. He is a Republican. For most of America, this labeling makes sense, and in our country, there has always been a place for both conservatives and liberals, for Republicans and Democrats…and their principles.
As a person who follows politics fairly closely, I’ve noticed something recently—especially given my zeal in eviscerating Republican talking points. First, consider these recent Republican positions on specific issues: adamant that the federal debt needs to be dramatically reduced, voted for privatizing Medicare into a voucher system, voted for the Paul Ryan budget that contained massive tax cuts, refused to approve a nuclear treaty or extend unemployment until Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, refused to allow a tax increase on millionaires, refused to end billions in subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies, virulently opposed to the Affordable Care Act which is projected to reduce the federal deficit, opposed to the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, refused to approve a war powers resolution to allow action against Libya to go forward.
What is so strange about this list? Well, for one thing, just about every position is 180 degrees from that of President Obama. But it is only context that tells us that. However, if an alien were to read this list of Republican positions 3,000 years from now, the very simple truth they would conclude is that there is almost nothing tying these positions together—there is no simple, underlying philosophy that can explain these positions.
In this sense, the modern Republican Party has committed one of the great human sins: politics without principle. Conservatives simply do not adhere to any real set of political values anymore; instead, they choose the route that is most politically expedient, and run with it.
Even consider their most championed cause: tax cuts. What is their position, as we all know? Cut taxes no matter what. But wait, what about the deficit? That issue has been foisted upon us with about as much grace as a 16 year old boy begging his girlfriend for sex. The deficit is an urgent, terrifying problem, we’re told. If we don’t fix it, we’ll become Greece, we’ll become Spain, we’ll become Japan! And because the deficit is such an awful problem, we should…cut taxes?
Surprisingly, that is exactly their answer. Paul Ryan’s budget, voted for by every Republican in the House, contained huge tax cuts. And look at every presidential candidate—they all want to cut taxes! So on the one hand, we are told that we have a very serious deficit problem, and on the other, we are told that the answer is to cut the primary source of revenue, or credit, for the government.
Now, some of you might be saying, “well, they always do believe in cutting taxes—they do that no matter what. Isn’t that principled?” No, it is not principled. A principle is a belief in a higher purpose, a balanced position based on reason and logic. The dictionary defines a principle as: “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”
In this sense, a principle involves more than just a directional policy, such as cutting taxes. A person could say they believe in very low taxes, but if we are to take the Republicans seriously, they seem to believe in having no taxes, which amounts to believing in anarchy, since any government must have some source of revenue to operate. Moreover, it is absurd to argue for both cutting the deficit and taxes—these are mutually exclusive ideas. A principled position would either say that it is more important to cut taxes, or that it is more important to pay down the deficit, depending on that person’s beliefs about the role of government. Thus, the Republican position of believing in tax cuts in perpetuity is absent of principle. Instead, it is something they put out as a major plank in their platform because tax cuts are popular.
Worse is their most hallowed position: opposition to abortion, or pro life. We are told, by Republicans, that abortion is murder, that the fetus is a human being and has the right to live, regardless of the mother’s, or family’s wishes. One would assume then, that Republicans care deeply about human beings, that they would be stalwart supporters of schools, health care, and programs like WIC, that provide support for women and their children. But this is not the case. Republicans recently have fought to make huge cuts to schools, have aggressively opposed health care reform, have made deals and are currently attempting to make more that would cut funding for WIC and other programs. At every turn, Republicans oppose having a social safety net that helps people survive, whether it is unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, etc. So while they want the government to be involved in deciding whether or not abortions can take place, they don’t want the government to be involved in helping at-risk people survive—a clear lack of principle.
It is precisely this lack of principle that is going to kill them in the 2012 election. How is Romney going to attack Obama for his health care plan when he passed its predecessor while he was governor in Massachusetts? How are Republicans going to argue for more tax cuts when they’ve spent every second between 2010 and 2012 howling about the deficit? How are they going to argue they value education when Republican governors everywhere have been busting unions and forcing massive cuts to teacher salaries and education budgets? How are they going to say on the one hand that they are opposed to ousting Gaddafi, and on the other, argue that it is important to keep troops in Afghanistan?
The only way they get away from these issues is if this concept is absent from the debate. From now on the Democrats need only one message: Republicans are a party without principle. As such, they are unfit to govern a country built on one: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Protectors of the Bourgeois
First, let me say this: get out of the stock market. Now, I am not a financial analyst, nor am I licensed to hand out financial advice, but I’d get out if I had a choice. The market is going to tank because the Republicans aren’t going to agree to raise the debt ceiling. Or, if they do, it will be because president Obama will have once again completely capitulated to their demands (as he is wont to do) to cut social programs so deeply that the U.S. economy will be crippled going forward. Either way, I don’t see how this is going to end well for financial markets. Add to that, the fact that there is basically no oversight of the same banks that failed in 2008 because the Republicans refuse to allow the creation of the consumer financial protection bureau, to be headed by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, and you might start to realize what really deep shit we’re in. Get out. Sell your possessions. Run for the hills.
I had intended to write today to prove that the Republican party was fascist. Indeed, they do carry some of the same characteristics, such as a belief in corporate power, a belief that government should protect industry at all costs, and a belief that government should create and maintain a military industrial complex (in which the function of the military is combined with the corporate interests of industry). However, to suggest that Republicans are fascist wouldn’t be quite correct. The fact is they are manifesting themselves defenders and protectors of the bourgeoisie, as described by Karl Marx: the owners of the means of production. Now don’t all the sudden be afraid because I mentioned Marx—Americans have a way of being ignorant morons when it comes to this subject because we’re so brainwashed to believe that anything involving Marx, socialism, communism, etc. is automatically an attack on our way of life.
What is unfortunately lost when we relinquish ourselves to such cowardly childishness is that we lose Marx’s tremendously valuable historical perspective. In the beginning of his most famous work, The Communist Manifesto, Marx makes this statement:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and surf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes (473, 474).”
In other words, what Marx is saying is that society tends to form itself into two different classes—one class that owns, another that serves—and that because of this dynamic, these classes naturally stand in opposition to one another; an opposition that ultimately results in the destruction of that social structure, for better or worse. The key is what follows: “In ancient Rome have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations (474).” Thus, Marx argues that each society had “gradations” that stood between the two ultimate class divisions—essentially, that each society had a middle class, and that this prevented, or mitigated, the antagonisms that existed between the two polar classes.
The next leap Marx made is where he miscalculated, though what he said is no less true, especially in regard to modern society: “the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into the two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat (474).”
Marx, writing in 1870’s, had not anticipated the fact that capitalist society would, and did, break itself into precisely the “gradations” that had preserved the order of earlier societies. Between the base proletariat laborer and his industry-owning, bourgeoisie master were doctors, teachers, lawyers, journalists, engineers, and other educated gradations that served, in a way, the needs of both classes. Later, there would be unions, as well, that buoyed the wages and prospects for many laborers, and in conjunction, programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc., that all served to create further gradations, blurring the line between the proletariat worker and his bourgeois employer.
Still, in the end, it cannot be denied that the two classes exist, and they exist in opposition—their interests are completely divergent. Whereas the bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production, want to pay as little for wages as possible, the proletariat, the laborer, wants wages to be as high as possible. It is only the existence of the middle class, the various gradations between that make a peaceful and stable society possible: with no middle class, the dynamic between the bourgeoisie and proletariat necessarily dictates both covert and open class warfare. This struggle between classes has only one ultimate end, as Marx correctly observes: “in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
Thus, the Republicans represent not fascism, but the bourgeois class; the bizarre twist is that they seek in rhetoric, policy, and action, to de-cleat the gradations so necessary to prevent open class warfare. They propose to privatize institutions like Social Security (Bush after ’04 victory) and Medicare (current Republican budget plan), in essence taking programs created to insure the working class a decent life in old age when they can no longer work, and gifting them back to the owners of the means of production, in this case, banks. They continue to attack and destroy unions, especially teacher’s unions, which are institutions that provide wage earners with some power based on their collective labor, allowing them to earn a decent living. And on the other hand, they use all of their political power to protect ownership: lower taxes for business and the very rich, subsidies for industries as prosperous as Big Oil, tax shelters for businesses that move their jobs overseas, all the while fighting tooth and nail against consumer protections, business watchdog agencies, and benefits for the very poor and unemployed.
When taking this view, the Republicans very nakedly stand against just about every single institution of government or society that has acted to defuse class tensions between worker and owner, poor and rich, proletariat and bourgeois.
This is precisely why I believe Republicans won’t raise the debt ceiling, and it is also why they don’t care whether the U.S. or world economy goes in the tank as a result: it may hurt business some, but in the end, the owners of the means of production will still maintain ownership—they’ll be OK—they’re rich, and to boot, they’re captains of industry. Meanwhile, everyone else will be knocked down, desperate, fragile, and vulnerable. What better way to destroy political organization by the working class? What better way to drive down wages? Worse, they know that the only chance they have to beat Obama in 2012, and thereby maintain power for the bourgeoisie, is if the economy is in horrible shape.
So, as I said, if I had any money in the stock market, I’d get out now. The Republicans are going to try to destroy our economy, and they may well succeed.
I had intended to write today to prove that the Republican party was fascist. Indeed, they do carry some of the same characteristics, such as a belief in corporate power, a belief that government should protect industry at all costs, and a belief that government should create and maintain a military industrial complex (in which the function of the military is combined with the corporate interests of industry). However, to suggest that Republicans are fascist wouldn’t be quite correct. The fact is they are manifesting themselves defenders and protectors of the bourgeoisie, as described by Karl Marx: the owners of the means of production. Now don’t all the sudden be afraid because I mentioned Marx—Americans have a way of being ignorant morons when it comes to this subject because we’re so brainwashed to believe that anything involving Marx, socialism, communism, etc. is automatically an attack on our way of life.
What is unfortunately lost when we relinquish ourselves to such cowardly childishness is that we lose Marx’s tremendously valuable historical perspective. In the beginning of his most famous work, The Communist Manifesto, Marx makes this statement:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and surf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes (473, 474).”
In other words, what Marx is saying is that society tends to form itself into two different classes—one class that owns, another that serves—and that because of this dynamic, these classes naturally stand in opposition to one another; an opposition that ultimately results in the destruction of that social structure, for better or worse. The key is what follows: “In ancient Rome have patricians, knights, plebians, slaves; in the Middle Ages feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations (474).” Thus, Marx argues that each society had “gradations” that stood between the two ultimate class divisions—essentially, that each society had a middle class, and that this prevented, or mitigated, the antagonisms that existed between the two polar classes.
The next leap Marx made is where he miscalculated, though what he said is no less true, especially in regard to modern society: “the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into the two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat (474).”
Marx, writing in 1870’s, had not anticipated the fact that capitalist society would, and did, break itself into precisely the “gradations” that had preserved the order of earlier societies. Between the base proletariat laborer and his industry-owning, bourgeoisie master were doctors, teachers, lawyers, journalists, engineers, and other educated gradations that served, in a way, the needs of both classes. Later, there would be unions, as well, that buoyed the wages and prospects for many laborers, and in conjunction, programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc., that all served to create further gradations, blurring the line between the proletariat worker and his bourgeois employer.
Still, in the end, it cannot be denied that the two classes exist, and they exist in opposition—their interests are completely divergent. Whereas the bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production, want to pay as little for wages as possible, the proletariat, the laborer, wants wages to be as high as possible. It is only the existence of the middle class, the various gradations between that make a peaceful and stable society possible: with no middle class, the dynamic between the bourgeoisie and proletariat necessarily dictates both covert and open class warfare. This struggle between classes has only one ultimate end, as Marx correctly observes: “in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”
Thus, the Republicans represent not fascism, but the bourgeois class; the bizarre twist is that they seek in rhetoric, policy, and action, to de-cleat the gradations so necessary to prevent open class warfare. They propose to privatize institutions like Social Security (Bush after ’04 victory) and Medicare (current Republican budget plan), in essence taking programs created to insure the working class a decent life in old age when they can no longer work, and gifting them back to the owners of the means of production, in this case, banks. They continue to attack and destroy unions, especially teacher’s unions, which are institutions that provide wage earners with some power based on their collective labor, allowing them to earn a decent living. And on the other hand, they use all of their political power to protect ownership: lower taxes for business and the very rich, subsidies for industries as prosperous as Big Oil, tax shelters for businesses that move their jobs overseas, all the while fighting tooth and nail against consumer protections, business watchdog agencies, and benefits for the very poor and unemployed.
When taking this view, the Republicans very nakedly stand against just about every single institution of government or society that has acted to defuse class tensions between worker and owner, poor and rich, proletariat and bourgeois.
This is precisely why I believe Republicans won’t raise the debt ceiling, and it is also why they don’t care whether the U.S. or world economy goes in the tank as a result: it may hurt business some, but in the end, the owners of the means of production will still maintain ownership—they’ll be OK—they’re rich, and to boot, they’re captains of industry. Meanwhile, everyone else will be knocked down, desperate, fragile, and vulnerable. What better way to destroy political organization by the working class? What better way to drive down wages? Worse, they know that the only chance they have to beat Obama in 2012, and thereby maintain power for the bourgeoisie, is if the economy is in horrible shape.
So, as I said, if I had any money in the stock market, I’d get out now. The Republicans are going to try to destroy our economy, and they may well succeed.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
We Don't Invest
As it turns out, the giant sucking sound I heard this week wasn’t the rapture—it was my job disappearing, vacuumed away by a one-two punch of mismanagement and a lack of revenue in the Salem-Keizer School District. But I’ll leave the local problems aside.
Maybe it took losing my job to see it—it’s easy to look past unemployment when you’ve got one—but if it wasn’t clear before, it is now. I had an epiphany. It is simple. It is something that deep down, we all know is true; and yet, somewhere along the way, this country forgot about it.
See, what happened to me, and what is happening to teachers all over this country, represents a greater philosophical choice, that involves not only teachers, students, and parents, but every single person that lives in and loves this country: We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
If we did, class sizes would be getting smaller, not ballooning past 35 or 40 as they are in so many school districts. Tuition would be affordable—not crippling. And we’d see to it that there were living wage jobs available for high school and college graduates. We might even provide affordable health care. But we don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
Instead, we invest in the rich. Currently, the wealthiest 1% of Americans owns 40% of our wealth. We’ve had the top marginal tax rates go from 47.7% in 1982 under Reagan to 32.4% with the Bush tax cuts in effect. We’ve cut capitol gains taxes so that the very rich pay a smaller percentage (15%—less if they have a good accountant, and they usually do) than someone who makes $50,000 a year earning paychecks.
Just last year, Republicans in congress held the President hostage over extending these tax cuts in order to agree to extend unemployment benefits for out of work Americans. They wouldn’t even agree to end these tax breaks for millionaires. And most recently, Republicans in the Senate, joined by a few Democrats, voted to continue giving billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the 5 biggest oil companies in this country.
So we invest in the rich, we incentivize their success with tax breaks and subsidies, and like all investors, we expect a return. So…where are the jobs? Where is the reinvestment in American industry? Where is the thriving capitalist marketplace this trickle down dogma was supposed to create? Oh yeah, I remember now: it’s in China, where labor is cheap and consumer laws are non-existent.
As a result, what do we see for our young people, our future? Shrinking opportunity. We give them larger class sizes, less or no elective and industrial classes, fewer student loans, rising tuition, and a job market that is bleak at best. We tell them to work hard in school, go to a good college, and then…good luck schmuck. We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
And yet, who are the consumers that are going to buy washing machines, cars, furniture, refrigerators, televisions, and houses? Young people. We’re culling our society’s ability to produce consumers, because we don’t provide an environment where young people can be successful, and we don’t provide job opportunities for those who are.
That is what hit me when I was told my teaching job was going away. I worked hard in school. I paid good money to go to Willamette and earn a Masters in teaching. I coached baseball, worked summer school, was a member of SITE council, and taught my classes with passion and intelligence. I did everything I could, and in the end it wasn’t enough, because our society has made a decision.
We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
Maybe it took losing my job to see it—it’s easy to look past unemployment when you’ve got one—but if it wasn’t clear before, it is now. I had an epiphany. It is simple. It is something that deep down, we all know is true; and yet, somewhere along the way, this country forgot about it.
See, what happened to me, and what is happening to teachers all over this country, represents a greater philosophical choice, that involves not only teachers, students, and parents, but every single person that lives in and loves this country: We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
If we did, class sizes would be getting smaller, not ballooning past 35 or 40 as they are in so many school districts. Tuition would be affordable—not crippling. And we’d see to it that there were living wage jobs available for high school and college graduates. We might even provide affordable health care. But we don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
Instead, we invest in the rich. Currently, the wealthiest 1% of Americans owns 40% of our wealth. We’ve had the top marginal tax rates go from 47.7% in 1982 under Reagan to 32.4% with the Bush tax cuts in effect. We’ve cut capitol gains taxes so that the very rich pay a smaller percentage (15%—less if they have a good accountant, and they usually do) than someone who makes $50,000 a year earning paychecks.
Just last year, Republicans in congress held the President hostage over extending these tax cuts in order to agree to extend unemployment benefits for out of work Americans. They wouldn’t even agree to end these tax breaks for millionaires. And most recently, Republicans in the Senate, joined by a few Democrats, voted to continue giving billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the 5 biggest oil companies in this country.
So we invest in the rich, we incentivize their success with tax breaks and subsidies, and like all investors, we expect a return. So…where are the jobs? Where is the reinvestment in American industry? Where is the thriving capitalist marketplace this trickle down dogma was supposed to create? Oh yeah, I remember now: it’s in China, where labor is cheap and consumer laws are non-existent.
As a result, what do we see for our young people, our future? Shrinking opportunity. We give them larger class sizes, less or no elective and industrial classes, fewer student loans, rising tuition, and a job market that is bleak at best. We tell them to work hard in school, go to a good college, and then…good luck schmuck. We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
And yet, who are the consumers that are going to buy washing machines, cars, furniture, refrigerators, televisions, and houses? Young people. We’re culling our society’s ability to produce consumers, because we don’t provide an environment where young people can be successful, and we don’t provide job opportunities for those who are.
That is what hit me when I was told my teaching job was going away. I worked hard in school. I paid good money to go to Willamette and earn a Masters in teaching. I coached baseball, worked summer school, was a member of SITE council, and taught my classes with passion and intelligence. I did everything I could, and in the end it wasn’t enough, because our society has made a decision.
We don’t invest in education. We don’t invest in our young people.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Prognostication
While it may be a bit early to prognosticate on the next election, given that it’s only been a half-year since the last one, there’s an overall trend that is extremely interesting, and if the Democrats ever want to buck that trend, we’re going to need to see more out of them than what we’re seeing now and what we’ve seen before.
For now, it seems, the Dems are content to sit back and let the Republicans shoot themselves in the collective foot, which is what happens when you love guns and you’re a dumbshit. Immediately following the last two successful Republican elections (’04, when Bush won re-election, and last year, when they took several Senate seats and took over en masse in the house), they haven’t been shy about their ambitions: cut Social Security (Bush), and cut Medicare (Boehner). And in the elections immediately following Bush’s blunder, they were horrified: they lost the House and the Senate in ’06, and Democrats increased their margins in 2008, adding the presidency as well.
My guess is the same will happen next year, assuming the world doesn’t end before that time. None of the Republican candidates can seriously challenge Obama for the presidency, and unless the voters suddenly forget their spurious attacks on unions, teachers and other public employees, women, and Medicare immediately following their victory in 2010, the prospects for the Elephants in 2012 don’t look good.
The real question is whether or not the Democrats will actually take advantage of it. They certainly didn’t after ’08, not like they should have anyway, although that was a tough situation, given the post-racist ripple that ran through the South and retirement homes across the U.S. after Obama’s election, not to mention the massive campaign of misinformation that came spewing out of the right wing noise machine. In any case, the past is the past, and in 2012 the Democrats will have officially run out of excuses. They should have majorities in both houses (if they have even mediocre campaign management), the presidency, and a supportive American public who will be in desperate need of real solutions.
In other words: they need to get shit done. That means taking actions on several key issues:
1) They need to find money for a great deal of investment in this nation’s infrastructure, as well as our system of education. Both are basically rotting into oblivion as it stands now. A significant investment in our roads, bridges, rail, and the electric grid would make our country more efficient and in the long run would save energy and money, not to mention the boost to the economy that would follow in the form of construction contracts and jobs.
2) They need to find a permanent fix for Medicare and Social Security. That might mean raising taxes on the rich, cutting benefits, or both, but if they can successfully tackle this problem, the future salience and financial security of our nation would be solved, and the Republicans, who already go forward with the equivalent of a rope bridge of a platform, would be totally fucked.
3) They need to simplify the tax code. Less deductions with a lower rate—especially for corporations. This combined with a higher tax rate (much higher, really) on the rich--there's no reason those making more than 1 million a year shouldn't be taxed at a 45 or 50% marginal rate (for every dollar they make after that million)--would really go a long way toward fixing our finances. And while they’re at it, they need to end the subsidies to farming and big oil. These industries do not need taxpayer money and are more than profitable enough to succeed in the marketplace on their own.
4) They need to cut military spending by at least a third. It is a massively bloated portion of government spending, and in the end it is simply untenable to saddle the American taxpayer with such a massive and unnecessary burden.
5) Pass some sort of election campaign finance reform that bypasses the Supreme Court’s horrible ruling in the Citizen’s United case. Much of the reason that nothing gets done in government is that there is way too much money given to both parties to maintain the status quo, and at some point, without change, it is going to cripple this nation irreparably. While they’re at it, they need to end the revolving door that exists between boards of directors, lobbying, and members of Congress and other government officials. The plain fact is that our political system is corrupt, and it is absolutely killing the average American.
In conclusion, though I am hopeful about the prospects for the Democrats in the next election, I’m skeptical about whether a win is actually going to translate to change. It doesn’t seem much has been done at all to help the average person recently by either party, and if it continues I won’t be prognosticating: I’ll be emmigrating.
For now, it seems, the Dems are content to sit back and let the Republicans shoot themselves in the collective foot, which is what happens when you love guns and you’re a dumbshit. Immediately following the last two successful Republican elections (’04, when Bush won re-election, and last year, when they took several Senate seats and took over en masse in the house), they haven’t been shy about their ambitions: cut Social Security (Bush), and cut Medicare (Boehner). And in the elections immediately following Bush’s blunder, they were horrified: they lost the House and the Senate in ’06, and Democrats increased their margins in 2008, adding the presidency as well.
My guess is the same will happen next year, assuming the world doesn’t end before that time. None of the Republican candidates can seriously challenge Obama for the presidency, and unless the voters suddenly forget their spurious attacks on unions, teachers and other public employees, women, and Medicare immediately following their victory in 2010, the prospects for the Elephants in 2012 don’t look good.
The real question is whether or not the Democrats will actually take advantage of it. They certainly didn’t after ’08, not like they should have anyway, although that was a tough situation, given the post-racist ripple that ran through the South and retirement homes across the U.S. after Obama’s election, not to mention the massive campaign of misinformation that came spewing out of the right wing noise machine. In any case, the past is the past, and in 2012 the Democrats will have officially run out of excuses. They should have majorities in both houses (if they have even mediocre campaign management), the presidency, and a supportive American public who will be in desperate need of real solutions.
In other words: they need to get shit done. That means taking actions on several key issues:
1) They need to find money for a great deal of investment in this nation’s infrastructure, as well as our system of education. Both are basically rotting into oblivion as it stands now. A significant investment in our roads, bridges, rail, and the electric grid would make our country more efficient and in the long run would save energy and money, not to mention the boost to the economy that would follow in the form of construction contracts and jobs.
2) They need to find a permanent fix for Medicare and Social Security. That might mean raising taxes on the rich, cutting benefits, or both, but if they can successfully tackle this problem, the future salience and financial security of our nation would be solved, and the Republicans, who already go forward with the equivalent of a rope bridge of a platform, would be totally fucked.
3) They need to simplify the tax code. Less deductions with a lower rate—especially for corporations. This combined with a higher tax rate (much higher, really) on the rich--there's no reason those making more than 1 million a year shouldn't be taxed at a 45 or 50% marginal rate (for every dollar they make after that million)--would really go a long way toward fixing our finances. And while they’re at it, they need to end the subsidies to farming and big oil. These industries do not need taxpayer money and are more than profitable enough to succeed in the marketplace on their own.
4) They need to cut military spending by at least a third. It is a massively bloated portion of government spending, and in the end it is simply untenable to saddle the American taxpayer with such a massive and unnecessary burden.
5) Pass some sort of election campaign finance reform that bypasses the Supreme Court’s horrible ruling in the Citizen’s United case. Much of the reason that nothing gets done in government is that there is way too much money given to both parties to maintain the status quo, and at some point, without change, it is going to cripple this nation irreparably. While they’re at it, they need to end the revolving door that exists between boards of directors, lobbying, and members of Congress and other government officials. The plain fact is that our political system is corrupt, and it is absolutely killing the average American.
In conclusion, though I am hopeful about the prospects for the Democrats in the next election, I’m skeptical about whether a win is actually going to translate to change. It doesn’t seem much has been done at all to help the average person recently by either party, and if it continues I won’t be prognosticating: I’ll be emmigrating.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The truth, is the truth, is the truth...
The reaction by right winger’s to the killing of Osama bin Laden was absolutely predictable. “Where’s the body?” “This puts more American lives in danger.” “The military acted on its own and Obama deserves no credit.” These were the typical nay-saying responses from a group of people that won’t give President Obama credit for doing anything unless they think it’s bad. From a distance, it’s laughable, but when examined more closely for the larger trend it represents, it explains exactly why it is that this country can’t get its act together: a huge number of people do not accept or do not receive accurate information, and because of it, our country fail’s to think, act, and vote rationally. Nearly all of this misinformation and failure can be attributed to Republican politics.
The most egregious example of this trend in American politics is probably the right wing’s refusal to accept climate change. Scientific evidence, from atmospheric carbon levels to disappearing glaciers to warmer average temperatures to extreme weather, is abundant, and about as in-your-face as you can get. Yet conservatives continue to refute, misinform, and bloviate on this topic. And because of that, we’ve done nothing in this country to address the causes or effects of climate change.
The problem is this complete lack of basic knowledge, the inability of conservatives to accept plain truths, extends far beyond climate change. Heard of the “birthers?” The people who believe that Obama is not even a citizen of this country—that in spite of the CIA, the FBI, and all the other security organizations in this country—that somehow Obama escaped their scrutiny to become an “illegitimate” president. It’s an absolute joke, and yet, 51% of Republicans believe that our President was not born in this country.
Far worse are the articles of faith in Republican economics, such as: “let the market solve our problems,” “regulations prevent profitability,” “tax cuts create jobs,” “tax increases kill jobs,” “corporations are too highly taxed in the U.S. compared to other countries,” “private business is always more efficient than government run programs,” and “wealth redistribution is counter productive.” These are all ideas that many people, not just Republicans, believe as unquestionable truths, and yet, every one of them can be proven false if one looks at data from the last twenty years.
1) The market doesn’t solve all of our problems—it only solves the problems that people are willing to pay to have solved. In other words, only problems where there is profit to be had will ever be addressed by the market. Moreover, this does not mean that letting the market decide is good. Consider the insurance market for medicine: my own sister cannot be covered even though she is a health young woman in her 20's, and in related news, just yesterday Blue Cross in Oregon announced that they will be raising rates on individuals by 22% starting in August. This is the market at work, and in some cases, it just doesn't.
2) Regulations may provide certain barriers or problems for businesses, but a lack of regulations and/or oversight can have horrible results that cost jobs and are far worse, in the long run, for the economy—consider the recent Wall St. crash in 2008 that completely tanked our economy, or the oil spill in the gulf that has cost the people in that region billions in lost revenues from the hit to the tourism and fishing industries.
3) If tax cuts created jobs, we should have an unemployment rate near 5%, not 10, because the effective tax rate in the U.S. for both business and individuals is about as low as it has been in recent memory. On the flip side, when Clinton increased taxes on the wealthy, the economy did just fine, growing rapidly in fact, until deregulation and 9-11 caused Wall St. to crash again in 2000.
4) The idea that corporations are taxed too heavily in the U.S. is laughable. While the highest marginal corporate tax rate is high at 35%, almost no company actually pays that rate. There are literally thousands of deductions available to any business large enough to hire an accountant, and many of the largest U.S. companies pay zero in taxes, or worse, are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.
5) Government run health care, in the form of Medicare, delivers care more efficiently and for a far lower cost than private insurance. And imagine what would have happened if Social Security had been privatized and put in the hands of Wall St. to manage: all of that money would be gone when the banks failed in 2008. The government can and currently does do many things better that the private market. That is a fact.
6) Income redistribution, in the form of forcing corporations and the richest Americans to pay higher tax rates, would actually do a lot of good. Part of the reason we’re in such bad economic straights is that people in the lower and middle class are running out of money. The richest 1% of families in this country own more wealth than the bottom 50% of all Americans. Given that 67% of our economy is based on consumer spending, it is not good that so much of our nation’s wealth is held by so few hands.
Ultimately, all of this will come crashing to down at some point. One can ignore the truth, but like it or not, the truth still exists. Republicans can sit there and claim that a pot of boiling water isn’t hot, but they’re still going to burn their hand if they put it in the water. They can continue to deny climate change, but it’s happening, and it is going to have dramatic consequences at some point if we refuse to do anything about it. They can continue to believe Obama isn’t a legitimate President, but he’s running in 2012 whether they like it or not, and he’s going to win that election because they have a stable of idiots running on their side. And if we continue, as a country, to legitimize and enact trickle-down economic policy; if we continue to allow the rich to take their money and run; if we continue to make it possible for corporations to send jobs overseas and receive tax cuts for doing so, we’re going to be hosed. Because at some point, people aren’t going to have any money left, and then who are GM going to sell their cars to? Who’s going to buy GE washing machines? Who’s going to buy houses and reinvigorate the construction industry? There won’t be anybody—there won’t be any customers! Consider what Henry Ford said about business: “There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” Where is that spirit from our entrepreneurs and business leaders today?
The final question is whether U.S. voters will make the rational choice? The plain fact is that Republicans are wrong about how to run a government and how to manage an economy. They are simply bad at governing. On top of that, they don’t have the best interests of America at heart—and every time they lie about, distort, or spin the facts, they're effectively stabbing every American citizen in the back.
Just think about the last election, they came in crowing about jobs, and then what was the first thing they did? Nearly force a government shutdown so that they could hack down the size of the federal government. What is the first thing Republican governors did? Curtail the right to collectively bargain for public employees and then cut their jobs and wages. And now we have the budget plan from Republican Paul Ryan, which might be best summarized as trickle-down, reverse Robin Hood economics on steroids. But the question remains: will Americans make the rational choice when they go to the voting booths in 2012? Because unless they vote for huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, nothing is going to get done as usual, and the Republicans are going to force their mythical philosophies and beliefs down our throats as much as possible.
Rest assured, it will end eventually—the question is how bad is has to get before Americans learn that they can’t believe their way to a better tomorrow. Only a country that makes rational decisions based on facts can survive in this 21st century.
What can you do? You have to confront people that hold these irrational thoughts. You have to establish the truth and embarrass people that will sit there and spread ideas that are simply untrue. It is not easy, but if every rational American made a real effort to stop this nonsense, it would go a long way toward ending this era of irrationality.
The most egregious example of this trend in American politics is probably the right wing’s refusal to accept climate change. Scientific evidence, from atmospheric carbon levels to disappearing glaciers to warmer average temperatures to extreme weather, is abundant, and about as in-your-face as you can get. Yet conservatives continue to refute, misinform, and bloviate on this topic. And because of that, we’ve done nothing in this country to address the causes or effects of climate change.
The problem is this complete lack of basic knowledge, the inability of conservatives to accept plain truths, extends far beyond climate change. Heard of the “birthers?” The people who believe that Obama is not even a citizen of this country—that in spite of the CIA, the FBI, and all the other security organizations in this country—that somehow Obama escaped their scrutiny to become an “illegitimate” president. It’s an absolute joke, and yet, 51% of Republicans believe that our President was not born in this country.
Far worse are the articles of faith in Republican economics, such as: “let the market solve our problems,” “regulations prevent profitability,” “tax cuts create jobs,” “tax increases kill jobs,” “corporations are too highly taxed in the U.S. compared to other countries,” “private business is always more efficient than government run programs,” and “wealth redistribution is counter productive.” These are all ideas that many people, not just Republicans, believe as unquestionable truths, and yet, every one of them can be proven false if one looks at data from the last twenty years.
1) The market doesn’t solve all of our problems—it only solves the problems that people are willing to pay to have solved. In other words, only problems where there is profit to be had will ever be addressed by the market. Moreover, this does not mean that letting the market decide is good. Consider the insurance market for medicine: my own sister cannot be covered even though she is a health young woman in her 20's, and in related news, just yesterday Blue Cross in Oregon announced that they will be raising rates on individuals by 22% starting in August. This is the market at work, and in some cases, it just doesn't.
2) Regulations may provide certain barriers or problems for businesses, but a lack of regulations and/or oversight can have horrible results that cost jobs and are far worse, in the long run, for the economy—consider the recent Wall St. crash in 2008 that completely tanked our economy, or the oil spill in the gulf that has cost the people in that region billions in lost revenues from the hit to the tourism and fishing industries.
3) If tax cuts created jobs, we should have an unemployment rate near 5%, not 10, because the effective tax rate in the U.S. for both business and individuals is about as low as it has been in recent memory. On the flip side, when Clinton increased taxes on the wealthy, the economy did just fine, growing rapidly in fact, until deregulation and 9-11 caused Wall St. to crash again in 2000.
4) The idea that corporations are taxed too heavily in the U.S. is laughable. While the highest marginal corporate tax rate is high at 35%, almost no company actually pays that rate. There are literally thousands of deductions available to any business large enough to hire an accountant, and many of the largest U.S. companies pay zero in taxes, or worse, are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.
5) Government run health care, in the form of Medicare, delivers care more efficiently and for a far lower cost than private insurance. And imagine what would have happened if Social Security had been privatized and put in the hands of Wall St. to manage: all of that money would be gone when the banks failed in 2008. The government can and currently does do many things better that the private market. That is a fact.
6) Income redistribution, in the form of forcing corporations and the richest Americans to pay higher tax rates, would actually do a lot of good. Part of the reason we’re in such bad economic straights is that people in the lower and middle class are running out of money. The richest 1% of families in this country own more wealth than the bottom 50% of all Americans. Given that 67% of our economy is based on consumer spending, it is not good that so much of our nation’s wealth is held by so few hands.
Ultimately, all of this will come crashing to down at some point. One can ignore the truth, but like it or not, the truth still exists. Republicans can sit there and claim that a pot of boiling water isn’t hot, but they’re still going to burn their hand if they put it in the water. They can continue to deny climate change, but it’s happening, and it is going to have dramatic consequences at some point if we refuse to do anything about it. They can continue to believe Obama isn’t a legitimate President, but he’s running in 2012 whether they like it or not, and he’s going to win that election because they have a stable of idiots running on their side. And if we continue, as a country, to legitimize and enact trickle-down economic policy; if we continue to allow the rich to take their money and run; if we continue to make it possible for corporations to send jobs overseas and receive tax cuts for doing so, we’re going to be hosed. Because at some point, people aren’t going to have any money left, and then who are GM going to sell their cars to? Who’s going to buy GE washing machines? Who’s going to buy houses and reinvigorate the construction industry? There won’t be anybody—there won’t be any customers! Consider what Henry Ford said about business: “There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” Where is that spirit from our entrepreneurs and business leaders today?
The final question is whether U.S. voters will make the rational choice? The plain fact is that Republicans are wrong about how to run a government and how to manage an economy. They are simply bad at governing. On top of that, they don’t have the best interests of America at heart—and every time they lie about, distort, or spin the facts, they're effectively stabbing every American citizen in the back.
Just think about the last election, they came in crowing about jobs, and then what was the first thing they did? Nearly force a government shutdown so that they could hack down the size of the federal government. What is the first thing Republican governors did? Curtail the right to collectively bargain for public employees and then cut their jobs and wages. And now we have the budget plan from Republican Paul Ryan, which might be best summarized as trickle-down, reverse Robin Hood economics on steroids. But the question remains: will Americans make the rational choice when they go to the voting booths in 2012? Because unless they vote for huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, nothing is going to get done as usual, and the Republicans are going to force their mythical philosophies and beliefs down our throats as much as possible.
Rest assured, it will end eventually—the question is how bad is has to get before Americans learn that they can’t believe their way to a better tomorrow. Only a country that makes rational decisions based on facts can survive in this 21st century.
What can you do? You have to confront people that hold these irrational thoughts. You have to establish the truth and embarrass people that will sit there and spread ideas that are simply untrue. It is not easy, but if every rational American made a real effort to stop this nonsense, it would go a long way toward ending this era of irrationality.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Financial Basics aka Your Taxes Are Effectively Higher
It may come as no surprise to you, dear readers, that people these days are misinformed about basic facts as it relates to how our country is financed. This blog entry will be a simple step by step explanation of how the system works.
Unemployment:
Yesterday I had a colleague complain about the state having to pay unemployment for all the teachers that are going to be laid off. While her point was good, and well intended (it’s a shame to have money come out of the government coffers to pay for someone who is out of work as opposed to at least getting something for it), she made a clear mistake in her logic: in every paycheck, for every employee, a portion is set aside for unemployment insurance. In other words, when a person becomes unemployed, they are merely recouping what they have paid into the system. It is insurance that we are forced to buy, and like all insurance, some people end up using more than others. When it comes to unemployment insurance, I’m pretty happy (fingers crossed) not to have to use it.
Social Security and Medicare:
For the most part, the same is true of Social Security and Medicare. These are specific taxes that are taken out of each and every paycheck, and both are insurance policies. Social Security protects the individual against disability, as well as providing a retirement safety net for the elderly. Medicare is an insurance program for the elderly that we all pay into and will hopefully collect on when we reach the qualifying age. One can argue the merits of either program, but cutting funding for either and then appropriating those funds for different uses would be a bastardization of the specific taxes we pay for this insurance.
An Effective Tax Hike:
What Republicans, and unfortunately, President Obama, are currently proposing by cutting government workers and social services, amounts to a massive, across-the-board tax hike. Note that no one is proposing to lower taxes in a rate commensurate with the lower level of services we can expect from local, state, and federal government after they’ve dumped public employees. Our tax rate will remain the same. When this basic logic is applied, the conservative argument is completely nonsensical. They argue, as one idiot named Kay Bridges did in her letter to the Oregonian, that when the state hires fewer public employees, or lowers their rate of pay, she, as a business owner, can then invest more in the economy. But Kay, taxes haven’t been lowered! You still pay the same rate that you did before dummy! It’s just that now your kids get to go to school with average class sizes of 40, instead of 35 (that classes are now as large as 35 should be an outrage in and of itself). Now you get to put your own fires out instead of relying on the fire department. Now you get to wait to collect Social Security until you’re 70. I mean, it is almost crazy right? You have all these conservatives effectively shouting, “I want less services and insurance for the same amount—we want less! I don’t want a $5 footlong—I want a $5 half foot!
Thus, in sum, when government cuts services and pay for its employees, without lowering taxes at the same time, your tax equity (what you expect to receive from the government for your taxes) is lowered substantially. In other words, it is a tax hike. And this escapes the minds of most Americans because they simply believe that we’re “tightening our belts,” and “being more fiscally responsible.” This may be a wise strategy for a family of four, or a young worker, but it simply does not apply to government economic policy. So the next time someone says, “I’m glad government is tightening its belt,” correct them—don’t you mean you’re glad that the government is raising taxes?
Unemployment:
Yesterday I had a colleague complain about the state having to pay unemployment for all the teachers that are going to be laid off. While her point was good, and well intended (it’s a shame to have money come out of the government coffers to pay for someone who is out of work as opposed to at least getting something for it), she made a clear mistake in her logic: in every paycheck, for every employee, a portion is set aside for unemployment insurance. In other words, when a person becomes unemployed, they are merely recouping what they have paid into the system. It is insurance that we are forced to buy, and like all insurance, some people end up using more than others. When it comes to unemployment insurance, I’m pretty happy (fingers crossed) not to have to use it.
Social Security and Medicare:
For the most part, the same is true of Social Security and Medicare. These are specific taxes that are taken out of each and every paycheck, and both are insurance policies. Social Security protects the individual against disability, as well as providing a retirement safety net for the elderly. Medicare is an insurance program for the elderly that we all pay into and will hopefully collect on when we reach the qualifying age. One can argue the merits of either program, but cutting funding for either and then appropriating those funds for different uses would be a bastardization of the specific taxes we pay for this insurance.
An Effective Tax Hike:
What Republicans, and unfortunately, President Obama, are currently proposing by cutting government workers and social services, amounts to a massive, across-the-board tax hike. Note that no one is proposing to lower taxes in a rate commensurate with the lower level of services we can expect from local, state, and federal government after they’ve dumped public employees. Our tax rate will remain the same. When this basic logic is applied, the conservative argument is completely nonsensical. They argue, as one idiot named Kay Bridges did in her letter to the Oregonian, that when the state hires fewer public employees, or lowers their rate of pay, she, as a business owner, can then invest more in the economy. But Kay, taxes haven’t been lowered! You still pay the same rate that you did before dummy! It’s just that now your kids get to go to school with average class sizes of 40, instead of 35 (that classes are now as large as 35 should be an outrage in and of itself). Now you get to put your own fires out instead of relying on the fire department. Now you get to wait to collect Social Security until you’re 70. I mean, it is almost crazy right? You have all these conservatives effectively shouting, “I want less services and insurance for the same amount—we want less! I don’t want a $5 footlong—I want a $5 half foot!
Thus, in sum, when government cuts services and pay for its employees, without lowering taxes at the same time, your tax equity (what you expect to receive from the government for your taxes) is lowered substantially. In other words, it is a tax hike. And this escapes the minds of most Americans because they simply believe that we’re “tightening our belts,” and “being more fiscally responsible.” This may be a wise strategy for a family of four, or a young worker, but it simply does not apply to government economic policy. So the next time someone says, “I’m glad government is tightening its belt,” correct them—don’t you mean you’re glad that the government is raising taxes?
Economic Nihilism
I don’t even know what to think anymore. I don’t really even know what the point of it is. I mean, why work or try to better yourself when you’re underpaid, overworked, scorned by society, and any money and progress that you do make in life is threatened constantly? It’s untenable. It’s miserable. And the fact is it’s the state of the average American worker. Scrambling to keep our heads above water, to improve our lives, to seek stable economic ground, and yet, to have that effort constantly undermined by the comfortable minority, the callous corporation, the cowardly media, and the corrupt politician.
The United States exists in a state of economic and governmental nihilism. Some don’t realize it. Some don’t care. Many are mistaken. But the fact remains that our government is essentially functioning without a purpose, and in doing so, it is purposefully heading toward its own destruction. On the one hand, we have Republicans that basically want to dismantle government completely and turn its faculties over to private business, and on the other, we have Democrats that refuse to take a hard line stance in opposition, preferring instead to wag their finger at them and compromise with people that are clearly wrong about almost everything.
The practiced meme is to say that both parties are too extreme and that they need to compromise. That talking heads on both sides are lying. That both philosophies have rational arguments to make. This is a plain, outright lie. When was the last time you heard a Republican say something that actually made any sense when examined from an intellectual (read: correct and justified) perspective?
Let’s take it issue by issue. The budget: just yesterday, Republican Paul Ryan came out with a proposal that would shift Medicare (administrative cost overhead between 2—6%) into the hands of private insurance (administrative cost overhead between 25—30%). He also proposed to extend income tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 indefinitely (I thought we had a serious deficit problem—every two years we have these tax cuts we have to borrow $700 billion from China), and on top of that, expand subsidies and tax breaks for corporations. The idea that this would somehow decrease the deficit, or improve the economy would be laughable if it wasn’t their serious proposal for the 2012 budget. On top of this, Republicans refuse to cut funding for the military, which is the single largest expense in our federal budget. They refuse to close loopholes in the tax code that allow huge corporations like GE and Big Oil to pay less than I did last year in taxes.
Science and climate change: last week Republicans held hearings on climate change that included only 2 scientists—one of whom testified that his findings “were very similar to that reported by prior groups (meaning the mainstream scientific community, which overwhelmingly believes human activities contribute to climate change).” This was despite the fact that his group, Berkely Earth Surfact Temperature Project, had been partially funded by the Koch foundation (so conservative that they would support fascism if it were socially palatable). You can read the Krugman article yourself if you’d like (1), but we should all know by now where Republicans stand when it comes to science: they don’t like it. If you need more evidence, one needs only look at state in the South or Midwest, several of whom are considering laws that would force teachers to openly call evolution into question, and to teach creationism in its place.
The economy: Republicans have called into question the usefulness of the federal stimulus plan, which according to several different studies, created or saved between 1 and 2 million jobs. They oppose any kind of stimulus in fact, unless it comes in the form of tax cuts. So I guess FDR just got lucky to get out of the depression, because according to Republicans, public works projects are worthless. Worse, they continue to subscribe to a theory of trickle down economics, which has been proven over time to be a horrible policy—it has contributed to the greatest shift of wealth in the history of America, from the masses to the very few. Last year, in 2010, the most profitable year for corporations in recent history, 50% of our country’s growth went to the top 1% richest households. Even more horrifying: 33% of our overall growth went to the top 0.1% richest households. But Republicans don’t care. They just want more of the same—tax cuts for the rich, tax breaks and loopholes for corporations.
Education: I don’t even know that Republicans have made any recent statements about their beliefs on education, but their actions speak plenty. Their current budget proposals cut funding for Pell grants and other student loans, as well as extra money to supplement state and federal education programs. Additionally, teachers are facing an unprecedented across the board effort by Republican governors to cut salaries, benefits, and the right to collectively bargain. Talking heads on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh (who never even graduated college), have spent hours on the airwaves demonizing teachers as, “fat, lazy, greedy, free loaders.”
I could keep going here with foreign policy (Iraq), energy policy (drill baby drill), health care (no plan to reduce costs, except to had it over to the private market—never mind that premiums have gone up 50% in the last ten years and overall cost is approaching 20% of the GDP), etc. But I’d like to get back to the main point.
Nihilism (or maybe hedonism) is basically the belief that nothing matters, that there is no point in being rational, and that because of this we should simply destroy everything we can including ourselves. I can’t think of a better way to summarize the Republican approach to government, and I can’t understand why Democrats continue to compromise and lend legitimacy to policies born out of this philosophy.
What makes our direction as a country nihilistic you ask? It’s really pretty simple: if we continue to funnel money to the richest 1% in this country, we continue to eliminate middle class jobs, and we continue to defund education, where are the consumers going to come from? If no one has any money left, how is our consumer driven economy (responsible for more than 60% of the GDP) going to survive?
The answer is, it’s not. And if that happens (and currently, no one is anxious to stop it) we’re done. When consumers have no money left and the entire middle class is bled dry, the whole line of dominos falls—the whole economy collapses. And then who knows? War, chaos, revolution, anarchy? Maybe all four. I can assure you this: capitalism, in all its splendor and glory will be done, because it needs the rule of law, as well as a stable government to function.
Unbelievably, we are no where close to recognizing our plight. Consider the recent editorial by the Oregonian: “This GOP spending plan should prod real compromise.” In the article, they make a typical statement that indicates how wrong traditional economic viewpoints have become: “We agree, however, that the economic fortunes of individuals and businesses will find improvement with lower taxes.” I thought we had a revenue problem in this country? I thought we were just terrified about our debt? How the hell are lower taxes going to solve this problem?
By becoming so focused on short term, selfish political aims (specifically, lowering taxes at all costs), our society is missing the big picture: if we don’t have a good infrastructure, business suffers. If we don’t educate our citizens, business suffers. If we don’t allow individuals to have access to things like health care and loans for higher education, business suffers.
Bottom line: until we figure it out as a society, and until our politicians get on board, we are practicing economic nihilism, and it is going to lead to the self destruction and death of the U.S. economy.
(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
The United States exists in a state of economic and governmental nihilism. Some don’t realize it. Some don’t care. Many are mistaken. But the fact remains that our government is essentially functioning without a purpose, and in doing so, it is purposefully heading toward its own destruction. On the one hand, we have Republicans that basically want to dismantle government completely and turn its faculties over to private business, and on the other, we have Democrats that refuse to take a hard line stance in opposition, preferring instead to wag their finger at them and compromise with people that are clearly wrong about almost everything.
The practiced meme is to say that both parties are too extreme and that they need to compromise. That talking heads on both sides are lying. That both philosophies have rational arguments to make. This is a plain, outright lie. When was the last time you heard a Republican say something that actually made any sense when examined from an intellectual (read: correct and justified) perspective?
Let’s take it issue by issue. The budget: just yesterday, Republican Paul Ryan came out with a proposal that would shift Medicare (administrative cost overhead between 2—6%) into the hands of private insurance (administrative cost overhead between 25—30%). He also proposed to extend income tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 indefinitely (I thought we had a serious deficit problem—every two years we have these tax cuts we have to borrow $700 billion from China), and on top of that, expand subsidies and tax breaks for corporations. The idea that this would somehow decrease the deficit, or improve the economy would be laughable if it wasn’t their serious proposal for the 2012 budget. On top of this, Republicans refuse to cut funding for the military, which is the single largest expense in our federal budget. They refuse to close loopholes in the tax code that allow huge corporations like GE and Big Oil to pay less than I did last year in taxes.
Science and climate change: last week Republicans held hearings on climate change that included only 2 scientists—one of whom testified that his findings “were very similar to that reported by prior groups (meaning the mainstream scientific community, which overwhelmingly believes human activities contribute to climate change).” This was despite the fact that his group, Berkely Earth Surfact Temperature Project, had been partially funded by the Koch foundation (so conservative that they would support fascism if it were socially palatable). You can read the Krugman article yourself if you’d like (1), but we should all know by now where Republicans stand when it comes to science: they don’t like it. If you need more evidence, one needs only look at state in the South or Midwest, several of whom are considering laws that would force teachers to openly call evolution into question, and to teach creationism in its place.
The economy: Republicans have called into question the usefulness of the federal stimulus plan, which according to several different studies, created or saved between 1 and 2 million jobs. They oppose any kind of stimulus in fact, unless it comes in the form of tax cuts. So I guess FDR just got lucky to get out of the depression, because according to Republicans, public works projects are worthless. Worse, they continue to subscribe to a theory of trickle down economics, which has been proven over time to be a horrible policy—it has contributed to the greatest shift of wealth in the history of America, from the masses to the very few. Last year, in 2010, the most profitable year for corporations in recent history, 50% of our country’s growth went to the top 1% richest households. Even more horrifying: 33% of our overall growth went to the top 0.1% richest households. But Republicans don’t care. They just want more of the same—tax cuts for the rich, tax breaks and loopholes for corporations.
Education: I don’t even know that Republicans have made any recent statements about their beliefs on education, but their actions speak plenty. Their current budget proposals cut funding for Pell grants and other student loans, as well as extra money to supplement state and federal education programs. Additionally, teachers are facing an unprecedented across the board effort by Republican governors to cut salaries, benefits, and the right to collectively bargain. Talking heads on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh (who never even graduated college), have spent hours on the airwaves demonizing teachers as, “fat, lazy, greedy, free loaders.”
I could keep going here with foreign policy (Iraq), energy policy (drill baby drill), health care (no plan to reduce costs, except to had it over to the private market—never mind that premiums have gone up 50% in the last ten years and overall cost is approaching 20% of the GDP), etc. But I’d like to get back to the main point.
Nihilism (or maybe hedonism) is basically the belief that nothing matters, that there is no point in being rational, and that because of this we should simply destroy everything we can including ourselves. I can’t think of a better way to summarize the Republican approach to government, and I can’t understand why Democrats continue to compromise and lend legitimacy to policies born out of this philosophy.
What makes our direction as a country nihilistic you ask? It’s really pretty simple: if we continue to funnel money to the richest 1% in this country, we continue to eliminate middle class jobs, and we continue to defund education, where are the consumers going to come from? If no one has any money left, how is our consumer driven economy (responsible for more than 60% of the GDP) going to survive?
The answer is, it’s not. And if that happens (and currently, no one is anxious to stop it) we’re done. When consumers have no money left and the entire middle class is bled dry, the whole line of dominos falls—the whole economy collapses. And then who knows? War, chaos, revolution, anarchy? Maybe all four. I can assure you this: capitalism, in all its splendor and glory will be done, because it needs the rule of law, as well as a stable government to function.
Unbelievably, we are no where close to recognizing our plight. Consider the recent editorial by the Oregonian: “This GOP spending plan should prod real compromise.” In the article, they make a typical statement that indicates how wrong traditional economic viewpoints have become: “We agree, however, that the economic fortunes of individuals and businesses will find improvement with lower taxes.” I thought we had a revenue problem in this country? I thought we were just terrified about our debt? How the hell are lower taxes going to solve this problem?
By becoming so focused on short term, selfish political aims (specifically, lowering taxes at all costs), our society is missing the big picture: if we don’t have a good infrastructure, business suffers. If we don’t educate our citizens, business suffers. If we don’t allow individuals to have access to things like health care and loans for higher education, business suffers.
Bottom line: until we figure it out as a society, and until our politicians get on board, we are practicing economic nihilism, and it is going to lead to the self destruction and death of the U.S. economy.
(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Thursday, March 31, 2011
It Just Doesn't Work...And Yet We Continue
Dear reader, as you know, one of our pet issues here at Chucking Rocks, is trickle down, or supply side economics—a theory conceived by conservative (incompetent) economists, and long heralded by conservative politicians and activists as a justification for tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy. Well, today is a great day for Chucking Rocks, because damning information has just come out proving that supply side economics simply does not work. Rather, it produces exactly what even the most elementary thinker should be able to grasp: government deficits due to a lack of tax revenue, huge corporate profits that in no way translate to more American jobs, and in the end, a massive transfer of wealth from the working poor and middle class to large business owners and the very wealthy.
It is well documented by now that government revenue, both state and federal, is down, and because of this, the federal government is running a large deficit (though this is nothing new), and state governments are being forced to make cuts to schools, public works, aid to the poor and elderly, as well as emergency services, such as police, fire, and health care. While some of the deficit can be blamed on lower income tax revenue because of high unemployment, tax cuts, especially for high income earners, have starved the public coffers. This has been somewhat true since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, though Reagan and H.W. Bush also passed tax increases, being advised by fiscal advisors that were not idiots (they correctly deduced that if lower taxes equals lower revenues). Unfortunately, ever since, tax cuts and supply side economics has been Republican dogma—the mere idea of even questioning such a notion unthinkable to anyone who considered themselves a conservative. And the predictable result: less government revenue. (1)
Meanwhile, corporations have been padding their bank accounts. According to an article on Bloomberg, corporate profit margins are currently at an 18 year high (2). In fact about a month ago, President Obama paid a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to in effect, beg them to spend some of the billions they are holding in cash reserves on research and development, greater production, basically, anything that would create more jobs for American workers. And yet, unemployment nationally sits just below 9%, while over the past decade, real wages for most Americans have declined. Consider some facts Minnesota Senator Al Franken cited last December, when Republicans were in full tax-cut extension fever: “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” (3) Bottom line: the rich have gotten obscenely rich, while the rest of us have been left to languish in a recession that is only effecting the middle and lower classes. (On a side note, you should read this article on Rolling Stone, explaining how Wall Street ruined this economy and got off scott free: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216)
The overall result of these policies is a huge transfer of wealth in America. In 2007, for example, the bottom 50% of households owned 2.5% of U.S. wealth, while the top 10% of households owned 71.5%. Not surprisingly, this is due to the shift in tax policy. In 1944, the richest income earners paid an effective tax rate of 65% (if you made over a million dollars a year—a hell of a lot back then); now, those in the same category pay only 23% of their income to the Feds. (4)
So, at this point, it should be pretty clear that cutting taxes—especially for the rich—does not create more jobs, starves the federal and state governments of money, and effectively transfers wealth from the lower and middle classes to millionaires and billionaires. These are provable facts, and it is your duty, dear reader, to make sure everyone you know—especially Republicans—is made aware of them. Supply side economics is asinine, and anyone who believes that tax cuts are good for job growth is a fool.
(1) http://www.democracyjournal.org/20/the-triumph-of-taxophobia.php?page=1
(2) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/profit-margins-at-18-year-high-signal-bigger-s-p-500-dividends.html
(3) http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/03/the_high_cost_of_a_broken_meta.html
(4) http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1
It is well documented by now that government revenue, both state and federal, is down, and because of this, the federal government is running a large deficit (though this is nothing new), and state governments are being forced to make cuts to schools, public works, aid to the poor and elderly, as well as emergency services, such as police, fire, and health care. While some of the deficit can be blamed on lower income tax revenue because of high unemployment, tax cuts, especially for high income earners, have starved the public coffers. This has been somewhat true since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, though Reagan and H.W. Bush also passed tax increases, being advised by fiscal advisors that were not idiots (they correctly deduced that if lower taxes equals lower revenues). Unfortunately, ever since, tax cuts and supply side economics has been Republican dogma—the mere idea of even questioning such a notion unthinkable to anyone who considered themselves a conservative. And the predictable result: less government revenue. (1)
Meanwhile, corporations have been padding their bank accounts. According to an article on Bloomberg, corporate profit margins are currently at an 18 year high (2). In fact about a month ago, President Obama paid a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to in effect, beg them to spend some of the billions they are holding in cash reserves on research and development, greater production, basically, anything that would create more jobs for American workers. And yet, unemployment nationally sits just below 9%, while over the past decade, real wages for most Americans have declined. Consider some facts Minnesota Senator Al Franken cited last December, when Republicans were in full tax-cut extension fever: “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” (3) Bottom line: the rich have gotten obscenely rich, while the rest of us have been left to languish in a recession that is only effecting the middle and lower classes. (On a side note, you should read this article on Rolling Stone, explaining how Wall Street ruined this economy and got off scott free: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216)
The overall result of these policies is a huge transfer of wealth in America. In 2007, for example, the bottom 50% of households owned 2.5% of U.S. wealth, while the top 10% of households owned 71.5%. Not surprisingly, this is due to the shift in tax policy. In 1944, the richest income earners paid an effective tax rate of 65% (if you made over a million dollars a year—a hell of a lot back then); now, those in the same category pay only 23% of their income to the Feds. (4)
So, at this point, it should be pretty clear that cutting taxes—especially for the rich—does not create more jobs, starves the federal and state governments of money, and effectively transfers wealth from the lower and middle classes to millionaires and billionaires. These are provable facts, and it is your duty, dear reader, to make sure everyone you know—especially Republicans—is made aware of them. Supply side economics is asinine, and anyone who believes that tax cuts are good for job growth is a fool.
(1) http://www.democracyjournal.org/20/the-triumph-of-taxophobia.php?page=1
(2) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/profit-margins-at-18-year-high-signal-bigger-s-p-500-dividends.html
(3) http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/03/the_high_cost_of_a_broken_meta.html
(4) http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Plagiarizing myself...and slap bets
Every once in awhile, it’s a good idea to take a survey of where we’re at, politically, as a country. So much is said and repeated and spun and edited by the news rooms, pundits, and political machines in our nation (in the case of Fox news, a combination of all three), it’s hard for the many Americans to make sense of it all. Basic questions such as, “who is telling the truth? Who is lying? What are the facts?” and more complex questions like, “what should we do to turn the economy around? How do we really reduce the deficit? How do we improve education in this country while streamlining the efficiency with which it’s delivered?” All are good questions, and I’m here to make it a little easier to understand the answers—but rather than bore you with facts, numbers, and logic (though all will make their relevant appearances), I think it is best to make comparisons; to put things in simple language that is fun to read, and easy to understand.
To borrow from the format of those horrible Geico commercials: “Do Republicans politicians tell the truth? (downturn of face to showoff the greasy hair, then look up and turn stupid face to the side) Does Satan like Girl Scout cookies?” (Pause for dramatic effect, followed by the Lord of Darkness burning down a church) Of course not—Girl scout cookies are wholesome, support a good cause, and they are downright delicious—divinely delicious in fact.
Anyway, take the union issue in Wisconsin, where Republicans just pushed through a bill to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees. Up to this point, they’d been claiming that their efforts in this endeavor were merely budgetary. Well, it appears that it must not have been, since in order pass their erroneous bill, they had to strip all the budgetary language from it to skirt around the law in Wisconsin requiring a quorum (at least 20 Senators must be present to vote on any bill pertaining to the budget). They also held this vote in about 15 minutes, and violated the rule that any bill must be announced to the citizens of Wisconsin 24 hours prior to a vote being held.
It’s a play taken right out of Senator Palpatine’s playbook, and we all know what happens to Mace Windu, longtime Union advocate, when he confronts him: betrayal. In fact, the embodiment of the Republican party might be best captured when Anakin is battling Obi Wan, on a planet closely resembling hell, a longtime conservative stronghold, when he angrily screams, red eyed, “I hate you!” Can you feel the hate? Don’t be too surprised if you here that as the rallying cry at the 2012 Republican convention.
Who is lying? As usual, Fox News. During “The O’Reilly Factor” (also known as “A Crotchety Old Man Lies His Ass Off”), they displayed footage of a union rally that got out of hand, supposedly in Wisconsin. The only problem was that there were palm trees in the back ground…pretty sure those don’t grow in places that far North. Who watches that stuff anyway and remains an intelligent, thinking person…it’s like Gollum when he sees the ring: I can picture it now, Fox viewers in wheel chairs and retirement homes, crusty investment bankers, and racists everywhere, huddling around their televisions, chanting, “yes, precious, tax cuts for precious, we hates those unions and teachers, yes precious…and women, precious, women are tricksy and false, gollum!”
The facts? The facts are these: Bush and his Republican congress turned a budget surplus into a massive deficit by cutting taxes for the very rich (not only income—more important were the cuts to capitol gains), starting two completely unnecessary wars, and passing all kinds of bills that created loopholes and welfare for large, multinational corporations. And now after these actions have bankrupted our country, your 2010 Republican house has proposed to make 100 billion dollars in cuts to pay down the deficit. But have they chosen to cut funding for the largest programs like the military, social security, or Medicare? No. They’ve chosen both to cut out every possible government program that supports the poor or creates jobs, as well as any agency that enforces corporate regulations or provides information (ala NPR). So in a nutshell, the Republican party stole money from the government to give to their political donors and benefactors and now they want people in the lower and middle class to pay for the ensuing financial disaster of their malfeasance.
The facts? Every Republican has six fingers on their right hand. The Republican party rubs Survivor Russell’s bald head and round belly for good luck. The Republican party was glad that Crystal Bowersox lost American Idol. The Republican party doesn’t have a dream where their children are judged by the content of their character—they have a nightmare where all children are enslaved to serve the needs of rich, which men. Charlie Sheen is probably a Republican.
I just wish people would get the point I’m trying to make, and that is so abundantly clear to anyone who is willing to open their eyes and think: the Republican party does not want to serve America or Americans—it exists only to serve itself. Their political platform is: cut taxes at all costs—especially for the rich, oppress people of color and the female gender, deny education to anyone who can’t afford private school, end all restrictions on the power of corporations, deny and obfuscate science and reason, and fix the court systems and political rules to get our way. And their one overarching rule: do and say anything to get re-elected.
If Americans have any sense of purpose, and actually want to keep the democracy and freedoms we value so much, we've got to vote these guys out of office in 2012. And in the meantime, you have to confront your Republican friends, and decry them publicly. Supporting the Republican party should be an embarrassment at this point.
If you want, make a slap bet with a friend. Every time you can prove the Republican Party is doing something heinous, or their pundits lie, you get to slap the shit out of their face. And they get to slap you when the Democrats lie.
I'll take this challenge up publicly--anyone want to take me on. Provable lie by Democrats equals a slap for me...provable lie for Republicans equals a slap for you.
To borrow from the format of those horrible Geico commercials: “Do Republicans politicians tell the truth? (downturn of face to showoff the greasy hair, then look up and turn stupid face to the side) Does Satan like Girl Scout cookies?” (Pause for dramatic effect, followed by the Lord of Darkness burning down a church) Of course not—Girl scout cookies are wholesome, support a good cause, and they are downright delicious—divinely delicious in fact.
Anyway, take the union issue in Wisconsin, where Republicans just pushed through a bill to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees. Up to this point, they’d been claiming that their efforts in this endeavor were merely budgetary. Well, it appears that it must not have been, since in order pass their erroneous bill, they had to strip all the budgetary language from it to skirt around the law in Wisconsin requiring a quorum (at least 20 Senators must be present to vote on any bill pertaining to the budget). They also held this vote in about 15 minutes, and violated the rule that any bill must be announced to the citizens of Wisconsin 24 hours prior to a vote being held.
It’s a play taken right out of Senator Palpatine’s playbook, and we all know what happens to Mace Windu, longtime Union advocate, when he confronts him: betrayal. In fact, the embodiment of the Republican party might be best captured when Anakin is battling Obi Wan, on a planet closely resembling hell, a longtime conservative stronghold, when he angrily screams, red eyed, “I hate you!” Can you feel the hate? Don’t be too surprised if you here that as the rallying cry at the 2012 Republican convention.
Who is lying? As usual, Fox News. During “The O’Reilly Factor” (also known as “A Crotchety Old Man Lies His Ass Off”), they displayed footage of a union rally that got out of hand, supposedly in Wisconsin. The only problem was that there were palm trees in the back ground…pretty sure those don’t grow in places that far North. Who watches that stuff anyway and remains an intelligent, thinking person…it’s like Gollum when he sees the ring: I can picture it now, Fox viewers in wheel chairs and retirement homes, crusty investment bankers, and racists everywhere, huddling around their televisions, chanting, “yes, precious, tax cuts for precious, we hates those unions and teachers, yes precious…and women, precious, women are tricksy and false, gollum!”
The facts? The facts are these: Bush and his Republican congress turned a budget surplus into a massive deficit by cutting taxes for the very rich (not only income—more important were the cuts to capitol gains), starting two completely unnecessary wars, and passing all kinds of bills that created loopholes and welfare for large, multinational corporations. And now after these actions have bankrupted our country, your 2010 Republican house has proposed to make 100 billion dollars in cuts to pay down the deficit. But have they chosen to cut funding for the largest programs like the military, social security, or Medicare? No. They’ve chosen both to cut out every possible government program that supports the poor or creates jobs, as well as any agency that enforces corporate regulations or provides information (ala NPR). So in a nutshell, the Republican party stole money from the government to give to their political donors and benefactors and now they want people in the lower and middle class to pay for the ensuing financial disaster of their malfeasance.
The facts? Every Republican has six fingers on their right hand. The Republican party rubs Survivor Russell’s bald head and round belly for good luck. The Republican party was glad that Crystal Bowersox lost American Idol. The Republican party doesn’t have a dream where their children are judged by the content of their character—they have a nightmare where all children are enslaved to serve the needs of rich, which men. Charlie Sheen is probably a Republican.
I just wish people would get the point I’m trying to make, and that is so abundantly clear to anyone who is willing to open their eyes and think: the Republican party does not want to serve America or Americans—it exists only to serve itself. Their political platform is: cut taxes at all costs—especially for the rich, oppress people of color and the female gender, deny education to anyone who can’t afford private school, end all restrictions on the power of corporations, deny and obfuscate science and reason, and fix the court systems and political rules to get our way. And their one overarching rule: do and say anything to get re-elected.
If Americans have any sense of purpose, and actually want to keep the democracy and freedoms we value so much, we've got to vote these guys out of office in 2012. And in the meantime, you have to confront your Republican friends, and decry them publicly. Supporting the Republican party should be an embarrassment at this point.
If you want, make a slap bet with a friend. Every time you can prove the Republican Party is doing something heinous, or their pundits lie, you get to slap the shit out of their face. And they get to slap you when the Democrats lie.
I'll take this challenge up publicly--anyone want to take me on. Provable lie by Democrats equals a slap for me...provable lie for Republicans equals a slap for you.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Misogyny and Teacher Hate...It's Grrrreeeaaaattt!
I just don’t know where the Republican hate train is going to stop next, but if you’re a fucking nut, apparently it’s “ALL ABOARD!” All aboard for hating women, hating teachers, and hating the poor. And the conductors? Not elected officials of course—that would be much too democratic, even in a system that’s rife with lobbying money and general malfeasance. No, it’s the Koch brothers, a couple of ultra conservative fucktards whose mission it is to turn back the clock to the late 19th century: a quaint time when workers were oppressed, oligarchs ran the government, and you could slap a bitch down if she spoke up without worrying about domestic violence charges.
That’s right, these guys dream big—they hate half of everyone right off the bat. After all, who needs women? Haven’t they basically ruined everything? I mean, at the very beginning, that sassy bitch Eve just had to eat that apple—isn’t that like a woman to want what she can’t have—what a slut.
Let’s face it, women are just no good at doing anything (men would be much better at having children if we had the organs—and we wouldn’t complain so much about it either), and they cause a lot of fucking problems. History is full of examples: Helen of Troy was a war starting whore, Cleopatra basically caused the downfall of Rome, and then in the middle ages they had this whole witch problem—and were there ever any male witches? No, of course not: we don’t need a stick between our legs to feel special.
And then, in 1920, those stupid fucking liberals had to pass that goddamn amendment giving those breast bearing humanoids the right to vote. What the hell are they doing voting? What the hell are they doing wearing shoes for that matter? Shouldn’t they be at home washing dishes, taking care of children, and cooking while pregnant?
Well, the Koch brothers and their Republican cronies are delivering a clear message: satisfy me sexually and make me a pie bitch! All across the U.S., state Republicans are passing bills to limit access to reproductive health for women. And in the House of Representatives, they’ve gone ahead and slashed funding for planned parenthood—never mind that only 3 percent of their activities involve abortion procedures, or the fact that they don’t use federal money for abortions. Look, if a few women have to die because they won’t be able to be screened for cancer at Planned Parenthood, or receive treatment or care for STD’s, that is just fine with Republicans. And access to contraception? Screw that—if one of Eve’s daughters wants to get busy she can take the fucking consequences. Kinda hard to be an uppity, Sex in the City watching, politically active woman when your pregnant, isn’t it?
Of course, when the baby does come, Republicans don’t want to give him a free ride either. Nope, sorry junior, you’ve gotta pull yourself up by your little fucking bootstraps if you want to get anywhere, and you might as well learn early, because if the Koch brothers get their way, you’re going to have to learn on your own—like God intended.
After all, if there is anything worse than a woman, it’s a fucking no good, waste of space, caring, bleeding heart teacher. What a bunch of assholes! The only things a teacher is good for are holding union meetings and stealing money from taxpayers—that’s money that could be well spent on tax breaks for corporations and rich people! They’re the only ones that create jobs. What has a teacher ever done? Teach a kid to read…big fucking deal. If that kid were a real American, he’d have learned how to read by pulling The Fountainhead off of his parents bookcase at age 4—doesn’t need a whiny teacher to tell him to do that.
Hey, we all know that teachers make way too much money, and their benefits are too good as well. Did you know that most teachers make well over $80,000 a year, and they actually get paid money when they take a sick day to go to the doctor? And when they retire, they make even more. Those greedy bastards are just sucking our states dry of money, and for what: so those glorified fucking baby sitters can parade around with their masters degrees and spread their communist views—or worse, teach critical thinking, evolution, or math? Look, did they need teachers in the middle ages, or in the industrial age—fuck no! When you were seven, you picked up a shovel, you went into a mine, and you were happy with your company scrip.
Rest assured, the Republicans, thank God, are going to put a stop to those dumb teachers trying to teach. First, they’re going to get rid of their right to collectively bargain, which Republican governors are doing across the country. That’ll prevent strikes and other kinds of commi bullshit from happening during elections, like voting. Then, we can cut their pay and benefits so that no one in their right mind will ever want to teach, especially since it requires an advanced degree. Then the whole system will fail, and we can really swell the ranks of unskilled workers and get people to do the fuck what we tell them. Work motherfuckers! Work with your back and your legs, and don’t let that stupid thing between your ears get in the way!
I’m telling you, this is the Republican dream. A world where teachers are laughed at, or killed, as tea partiers and an Iowa attorney general have suggested. A world where women that make their own decisions are punished horribly, and sometimes, just for being a woman. That’ll teach them to be born without a penis. HATE!!!!
That’s right, these guys dream big—they hate half of everyone right off the bat. After all, who needs women? Haven’t they basically ruined everything? I mean, at the very beginning, that sassy bitch Eve just had to eat that apple—isn’t that like a woman to want what she can’t have—what a slut.
Let’s face it, women are just no good at doing anything (men would be much better at having children if we had the organs—and we wouldn’t complain so much about it either), and they cause a lot of fucking problems. History is full of examples: Helen of Troy was a war starting whore, Cleopatra basically caused the downfall of Rome, and then in the middle ages they had this whole witch problem—and were there ever any male witches? No, of course not: we don’t need a stick between our legs to feel special.
And then, in 1920, those stupid fucking liberals had to pass that goddamn amendment giving those breast bearing humanoids the right to vote. What the hell are they doing voting? What the hell are they doing wearing shoes for that matter? Shouldn’t they be at home washing dishes, taking care of children, and cooking while pregnant?
Well, the Koch brothers and their Republican cronies are delivering a clear message: satisfy me sexually and make me a pie bitch! All across the U.S., state Republicans are passing bills to limit access to reproductive health for women. And in the House of Representatives, they’ve gone ahead and slashed funding for planned parenthood—never mind that only 3 percent of their activities involve abortion procedures, or the fact that they don’t use federal money for abortions. Look, if a few women have to die because they won’t be able to be screened for cancer at Planned Parenthood, or receive treatment or care for STD’s, that is just fine with Republicans. And access to contraception? Screw that—if one of Eve’s daughters wants to get busy she can take the fucking consequences. Kinda hard to be an uppity, Sex in the City watching, politically active woman when your pregnant, isn’t it?
Of course, when the baby does come, Republicans don’t want to give him a free ride either. Nope, sorry junior, you’ve gotta pull yourself up by your little fucking bootstraps if you want to get anywhere, and you might as well learn early, because if the Koch brothers get their way, you’re going to have to learn on your own—like God intended.
After all, if there is anything worse than a woman, it’s a fucking no good, waste of space, caring, bleeding heart teacher. What a bunch of assholes! The only things a teacher is good for are holding union meetings and stealing money from taxpayers—that’s money that could be well spent on tax breaks for corporations and rich people! They’re the only ones that create jobs. What has a teacher ever done? Teach a kid to read…big fucking deal. If that kid were a real American, he’d have learned how to read by pulling The Fountainhead off of his parents bookcase at age 4—doesn’t need a whiny teacher to tell him to do that.
Hey, we all know that teachers make way too much money, and their benefits are too good as well. Did you know that most teachers make well over $80,000 a year, and they actually get paid money when they take a sick day to go to the doctor? And when they retire, they make even more. Those greedy bastards are just sucking our states dry of money, and for what: so those glorified fucking baby sitters can parade around with their masters degrees and spread their communist views—or worse, teach critical thinking, evolution, or math? Look, did they need teachers in the middle ages, or in the industrial age—fuck no! When you were seven, you picked up a shovel, you went into a mine, and you were happy with your company scrip.
Rest assured, the Republicans, thank God, are going to put a stop to those dumb teachers trying to teach. First, they’re going to get rid of their right to collectively bargain, which Republican governors are doing across the country. That’ll prevent strikes and other kinds of commi bullshit from happening during elections, like voting. Then, we can cut their pay and benefits so that no one in their right mind will ever want to teach, especially since it requires an advanced degree. Then the whole system will fail, and we can really swell the ranks of unskilled workers and get people to do the fuck what we tell them. Work motherfuckers! Work with your back and your legs, and don’t let that stupid thing between your ears get in the way!
I’m telling you, this is the Republican dream. A world where teachers are laughed at, or killed, as tea partiers and an Iowa attorney general have suggested. A world where women that make their own decisions are punished horribly, and sometimes, just for being a woman. That’ll teach them to be born without a penis. HATE!!!!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Follow Through, Part 2
So awhile back, I wrote a column called “follow through,” that suggested that Republicans and conservatives follow through their political philosophies to examine what kind of fruit they would bear if they were enacted. Given the recent uproar about unions in Wisconsin and other states, entitlement spending (Medicare and Social Security), and state and federal deficits, it might be wise to see what would happen if the Republicans were to got their way.
Let’s begin with the union issue. First off, I’ll agree that in hard economic times, unions have a social responsibility to take less in pay and benefits—to do otherwise would be to shut down certain necessary civic functions, such as teaching, nursing, fire fighting, public safety, etc., and that is not fair to the taxpaying public. However, governments, whether state or federal, have a responsibility to pay these people a fair wage and provide decent benefits, precisely because they are so necessary to each and every U.S. citizen.
Ultimately, this means the right to collectively bargain contracts, because a single individual simply does not have the power to compel the employer to provide fair wages and benefits; an individual is replaceable, so even if that means, say, firing a school’s best teacher, the impact to the student, while regrettable, can be justified. In such a system, wages would become unfair, especially when government revenue was low. On the other hand, firing a massive group of good teachers would impact education so tremendously, that such an act would be unthinkable—an option only to those with base motives. This is the power of collective bargaining—it allows a group of employees with a similar set of specific training and talents to attain fair compensation for their work.
Do unions sometimes go too far? Absolutely. But the right to collectively bargain isn’t at fault for union greed or poor judgment on the part of the arbiters. In fact, it could be argued that the right to collectively bargain is contained in the 1st Amendment, which states that: “Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” Make no mistake, governments and businesses have the right to fire union workers if they cannot pay their contracts, as well as the right not to hire or renew the contracts of union workers. What they cannot do is deny workers the right to organize and collectively bargain.
But that could all change if Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, gets his way. Walker has submitted a bill in the Wisconsin legislature that would eliminate the right of public employees to collectively bargain. This has sparked a number of protests by union workers, resulted in the shutdown of Madison area schools, and has Wisconsin’s Democratic representatives literally on the run (Wisconsin law requires a quorum, which means that at least one representative from the other party must be present in order to hold a vote; thus, by leaving, the Democrats are stalling the progress of the bill—a sort of traveling filibuster).
While it remains to be seen what is actually going to happen in Wisconsin, let’s assume Walker gets his way and outlaws collective bargaining for public employees. The first things to go will be health insurance, simply because other than a worker’s salary, it is the most expensive benefit. Of course, this includes not only the worker, but their family as well, so the number of uninsured in Wisconsin will skyrocket. In turn, health clinics will lose some, if not much of their regular, preventative business, while hospitals will receive more patients in their emergency rooms, driving up the cost of insurance for other citizens in Wisconsin. The result: higher premiums for private citizens and businesses and poorer health outcomes for many of Wisconsin’s citizens.
Worse, should Wisconsin’s government, under Walker’s direction, choose to cut salaries and retirement pensions, there will be an obvious drop-off for Wisconsin’s economy that extends beyond healthcare. Consumer spending will sag, real estate values will fall, and businesses will have to sell to a smaller customer base.
Conservatives may say that these cuts are necessary, and they may be right to a certain degree, but why not allow unions a place at the table to negotiate where and how the cuts are made, knowing that the state of Wisconsin has to balance its budget?
The truth is that Walker’s move is not simply about money—it’s a political calculation. Essentially, Walker is eliminating his competition. Unions tend to back Democrats in elections. No dues and no right to organize as workers means that a significant portion of his opposition will be absent in the next election—and that’s to leave out the possibility that it is payback for opposing him in the first place. If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard it before when you learned about the 19th and early 20th century in your U.S. History class.
On the federal level, Republicans are clamoring to go back to the era of Robber Barons in their own way: by cutting the notorious “entitlement” programs Medicare and Social Security (I don’t know how it can be an entitlement when every citizen pays taxes out of every paycheck to know that they will have these programs when they reach a certain age). And, basically, if Republicans get their way, the things that would happen in Wisconsin if they outlaw collective bargaining for public employees would happen nationally, only on a much larger and more horrific scale.
Consider what would happen if Medicare were curtailed or cut significantly. Seniors would now have to buy private insurance to subsidize what is left of Medicare. This insurance would of course be enormously expensive, because the elderly use a ton of health care, and much of it is very expensive. Ultimately, when the money dried up, families would be forced to make an awful decision: do we keep grandpa alive and spend enormous sums of money to do it, or is it just to expensive to justify for a man that might only live for 5 more years. Oh, but I suppose there is always the option that we’d just have many, many more admissions to the emergency room, and many, many more people that couldn’t pay the bill when they left, which everyone else’s insurance gets to fill in the gaps.
Now suppose on top of that, our Republican friends decide to cut Social Security. Get out of bed grandma—time to go back to work! You get to stop when you die. This may be the extreme, but a number of terrible things would occur: 1) retirement would be delayed significantly, leading to less opportunity for younger workers, 2) a significant number of people would fail to save enough for retirement, leaving families the burden to pick up the cost and/or the terrible proposition of many elderly facing financial ruin while they near death, and 3) there would simply be less money in the economy.
This final factor is the ultimate problem with what Republicans are proposing. Simply put, when dollars are cut for entitlements, public employees, etc, it means a good number of people won’t have money to spend, and that is not a good thing for an economy that is just beginning to get back on its feet. Our very fragile recovery’s success is put in jeopardy with every cost cutting measure. That is a fact.
At the same time, no one can deny that the current levels of spending at both state and federal levels are too high, and the federal deficit is a very real problem that is going to require the government to tighten its belt. The question is where we make those cuts. If we make them in social programs, public employees, etc, it is a double edged sword, because if the economy slows down as it would with these kinds of cuts, the government’s tax revenues will drop as well; then the question becomes whether you save more with the cuts than you lose concurrently with lower tax revenues?
The truth is, if we’re serious about the debt, the only sane thing to do is to cut areas that would have less of an effect on the domestic economy, such as military spending, procurements, and foreign aid. The other thing that has to be done is to figure out ways to increase tax revenue, and the best way to do this without harming the economy is to tax the very wealthy at a higher rate, and eliminate tax loopholes for multinational corporations, i.e. big oil.
But we know the Republicans won’t do these things, and so far all the Democrats have done is talk about them. Cutting government spending sounds really great, but if Republicans get their way and cut the programs they want to cut, we should all get used to 10% unemployment, a bad economy, and little opportunity for the average American to better themselves.
Let’s begin with the union issue. First off, I’ll agree that in hard economic times, unions have a social responsibility to take less in pay and benefits—to do otherwise would be to shut down certain necessary civic functions, such as teaching, nursing, fire fighting, public safety, etc., and that is not fair to the taxpaying public. However, governments, whether state or federal, have a responsibility to pay these people a fair wage and provide decent benefits, precisely because they are so necessary to each and every U.S. citizen.
Ultimately, this means the right to collectively bargain contracts, because a single individual simply does not have the power to compel the employer to provide fair wages and benefits; an individual is replaceable, so even if that means, say, firing a school’s best teacher, the impact to the student, while regrettable, can be justified. In such a system, wages would become unfair, especially when government revenue was low. On the other hand, firing a massive group of good teachers would impact education so tremendously, that such an act would be unthinkable—an option only to those with base motives. This is the power of collective bargaining—it allows a group of employees with a similar set of specific training and talents to attain fair compensation for their work.
Do unions sometimes go too far? Absolutely. But the right to collectively bargain isn’t at fault for union greed or poor judgment on the part of the arbiters. In fact, it could be argued that the right to collectively bargain is contained in the 1st Amendment, which states that: “Congress shall make no law…abridging…the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” Make no mistake, governments and businesses have the right to fire union workers if they cannot pay their contracts, as well as the right not to hire or renew the contracts of union workers. What they cannot do is deny workers the right to organize and collectively bargain.
But that could all change if Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, gets his way. Walker has submitted a bill in the Wisconsin legislature that would eliminate the right of public employees to collectively bargain. This has sparked a number of protests by union workers, resulted in the shutdown of Madison area schools, and has Wisconsin’s Democratic representatives literally on the run (Wisconsin law requires a quorum, which means that at least one representative from the other party must be present in order to hold a vote; thus, by leaving, the Democrats are stalling the progress of the bill—a sort of traveling filibuster).
While it remains to be seen what is actually going to happen in Wisconsin, let’s assume Walker gets his way and outlaws collective bargaining for public employees. The first things to go will be health insurance, simply because other than a worker’s salary, it is the most expensive benefit. Of course, this includes not only the worker, but their family as well, so the number of uninsured in Wisconsin will skyrocket. In turn, health clinics will lose some, if not much of their regular, preventative business, while hospitals will receive more patients in their emergency rooms, driving up the cost of insurance for other citizens in Wisconsin. The result: higher premiums for private citizens and businesses and poorer health outcomes for many of Wisconsin’s citizens.
Worse, should Wisconsin’s government, under Walker’s direction, choose to cut salaries and retirement pensions, there will be an obvious drop-off for Wisconsin’s economy that extends beyond healthcare. Consumer spending will sag, real estate values will fall, and businesses will have to sell to a smaller customer base.
Conservatives may say that these cuts are necessary, and they may be right to a certain degree, but why not allow unions a place at the table to negotiate where and how the cuts are made, knowing that the state of Wisconsin has to balance its budget?
The truth is that Walker’s move is not simply about money—it’s a political calculation. Essentially, Walker is eliminating his competition. Unions tend to back Democrats in elections. No dues and no right to organize as workers means that a significant portion of his opposition will be absent in the next election—and that’s to leave out the possibility that it is payback for opposing him in the first place. If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard it before when you learned about the 19th and early 20th century in your U.S. History class.
On the federal level, Republicans are clamoring to go back to the era of Robber Barons in their own way: by cutting the notorious “entitlement” programs Medicare and Social Security (I don’t know how it can be an entitlement when every citizen pays taxes out of every paycheck to know that they will have these programs when they reach a certain age). And, basically, if Republicans get their way, the things that would happen in Wisconsin if they outlaw collective bargaining for public employees would happen nationally, only on a much larger and more horrific scale.
Consider what would happen if Medicare were curtailed or cut significantly. Seniors would now have to buy private insurance to subsidize what is left of Medicare. This insurance would of course be enormously expensive, because the elderly use a ton of health care, and much of it is very expensive. Ultimately, when the money dried up, families would be forced to make an awful decision: do we keep grandpa alive and spend enormous sums of money to do it, or is it just to expensive to justify for a man that might only live for 5 more years. Oh, but I suppose there is always the option that we’d just have many, many more admissions to the emergency room, and many, many more people that couldn’t pay the bill when they left, which everyone else’s insurance gets to fill in the gaps.
Now suppose on top of that, our Republican friends decide to cut Social Security. Get out of bed grandma—time to go back to work! You get to stop when you die. This may be the extreme, but a number of terrible things would occur: 1) retirement would be delayed significantly, leading to less opportunity for younger workers, 2) a significant number of people would fail to save enough for retirement, leaving families the burden to pick up the cost and/or the terrible proposition of many elderly facing financial ruin while they near death, and 3) there would simply be less money in the economy.
This final factor is the ultimate problem with what Republicans are proposing. Simply put, when dollars are cut for entitlements, public employees, etc, it means a good number of people won’t have money to spend, and that is not a good thing for an economy that is just beginning to get back on its feet. Our very fragile recovery’s success is put in jeopardy with every cost cutting measure. That is a fact.
At the same time, no one can deny that the current levels of spending at both state and federal levels are too high, and the federal deficit is a very real problem that is going to require the government to tighten its belt. The question is where we make those cuts. If we make them in social programs, public employees, etc, it is a double edged sword, because if the economy slows down as it would with these kinds of cuts, the government’s tax revenues will drop as well; then the question becomes whether you save more with the cuts than you lose concurrently with lower tax revenues?
The truth is, if we’re serious about the debt, the only sane thing to do is to cut areas that would have less of an effect on the domestic economy, such as military spending, procurements, and foreign aid. The other thing that has to be done is to figure out ways to increase tax revenue, and the best way to do this without harming the economy is to tax the very wealthy at a higher rate, and eliminate tax loopholes for multinational corporations, i.e. big oil.
But we know the Republicans won’t do these things, and so far all the Democrats have done is talk about them. Cutting government spending sounds really great, but if Republicans get their way and cut the programs they want to cut, we should all get used to 10% unemployment, a bad economy, and little opportunity for the average American to better themselves.
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